Forgotten Territories in the Iranian Home: Issues of Segregation

Abstract

This article addresses issues associated with segregation and gender discrimination in the traditional culture of Iranian home. The concept of Iranian home with an emphasis on its territories and social characteristics, as well as segregation and gender aspects, was investigated. Using expert opinions, seven house samples were analyzed. Following a review of plans and maps, interviews, and visual observations, a content analysis of activities, social relations, and physical features was conducted. The results show that individual values have been forgotten, and the privacy is defined as a collective state for a family. Under the management of the father, home has a biological and economic nature. All household activities and social relationships are determined by gender. Among the things having distinct segregation attributes are permanent house elements, such as walls and entrances. Finally, it seems that the culture of Iranian home further emphasizes such concepts as confidentiality, purity, cooperation, and humility.

Author Biographies

Mojtaba Valibeigi, Buein Zahra Technical University, Iran

Mojtaba Valibeigi is a dedicated Assistant Professor of Urban Planning at Buein Zahra Technical University, Iran, with over 8 years of experience in teaching and research. He is keen to leverage environmental and participation approaches for local community development. He is particularly interested in the possibility of applying the sustainable foundations of the traditional neighborhoods in Iran.

Sakineh Maroofi, Buein Zahra Technical University, Iran

Sakineh Maroofi is an Assistant Professor of Urban Planning at Buein Zahra Technical University, Iran, with over 20 years of research and teaching in the field of social and cultural studies, and design and urban planning at Iranian universities. Sakineh Maroofi applies sociological and cultural approaches in urban studies with an emphasis on social and cultural sustainability in cities and neighborhoods.

Sara Danay, Buein Zahra Technical University, Iran

Sara Danay is a University Lecturer of Urban Design at Buein Zahra Technical University, Iran. Sara is interested in urban design and landscape architecture, Islamic architectural approaches in particular. She is also conducting research into sustainable characteristics of Iranian neighborhoods and households.

References


  • Aryanti, T. (2013). Breaking the wall, preserving the Barrier: gender, space, and power in contemporary mosque architecture in Yogyakarta, Indonesia [Ph.D. dissertation]. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. http://hdl.handle.net/2142/45570

  • Asif, N., Utaberta, N., Bin Sabil, A. B., & Ismail, S. (2018). Reflection of cultural practices on syntactical values: An introduction to the application of space syntax to vernacular Malay architecture. Frontiers of Architectural Research, 7(4), 521–529. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foar.2018.08.005

  • Banks, M. (2018). Using visual data in qualitative research (2nd ed.). Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526445933

  • Birch, E. L. (2008). Public and private space in urban areas: house, neighborhood, and city. In R. A. Cnaan & C. Milofsky, (Eds.), Handbook of community movements and local organizations (pp. 118–128). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-32933-8_8

  • Blench, R. (2001). “You can't go home again”: pastoralism in the new millennium [Research report]. Overseas Development Institute London. https://odi.org/en/publications/you-cant-go-home-again-pastoralism-in-the-new-millennium/

  • Blunt, A. (2005). Cultural geography: cultural geographies of home. Progress in Human Geography, 29(4), 505–515. https://doi.org/10.1191/0309132505ph564pr

  • Bowlby, S., Gregory, S., & McKie, L. (1997). “Doing home”: patriarchy, caring, and space. Women's Studies International Forum, 20(3), 343–350. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0277-5395(97)00018-6

  • Brickell, K. (2012). ‘Mapping’ and ‘doing’ critical geographies of home. Progress in Human Geography, 36(2), 225–244. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132511418708

  • Burckhardt, T. (2009). Art of Islam: language and meaning. World Wisdom.

  • Canter, D. (1983). The purposive evaluation of places: A facet approach. Environment and Behavior, 15(6), 659–698. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916583156001

  • Canter, D. (1997). The facets of place. In G. T. Moore & R. W. Marans (Eds.), Toward the integration of theory, methods, research, and utilization (pp. 109–147). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-4425-5_4

  • Canter, D. (2016). Revealing the conceptual systems of places. In R. Gifford (Ed.), Research methods for environmental psychology (pp. 137–159). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119162124.ch8

  • Davidoff, L., & Hall, C., (2018). Family fortunes: men and women of the English middle class 1780–1850. Routledge.

  • Domosh, M. (1998). Geography and gender: home, again? Progress in human geography, 22(2), 276–282. https://doi.org/10.1191/030913298676121192

  • Dowling, R. (2012). Privacy, sanctuary and privatism. In S. J. Smith (Ed.), International encyclopedia of housing and home (pp. 367–371). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-047163-1.00376-3

  • Duncan, J. S., & Lambert, D. (2004). Landscapes of home. In J. S. Duncan, N. C. Johnson, & R. H. Schein (Eds.), A companion to cultural geography (pp. 382–403). Blackwell.

  • Dursun, P. (2007). Space syntax in architectural design. In Proceedings of the 6th International Space Syntax Symposium, İstanbul, Turkey, June 12–15, 2007. http://spacesyntaxistanbul.itu.edu.tr/papers.htm

  • Ellis, M., Wright, R., & Parks, V. (2004). Work together, live apart? Geographies of racial and ethnic segregation at home and at work. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 94(3), 620–637. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8306.2004.00417.x

  • Fahey, T. (1995). Privacy and the family: Conceptual and empirical reflections. Sociology, 29(4), 687–702. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038595029004008

  • Flick, U. (2018). Designing qualitative research (2nd ed.). Sage.

  • Habib, F., Alborzi, F., & Etessam, I. (2013). Light processing in Iranian houses; Manifestation of meanings and concepts. International Journal of Architecture and Urban Development, 3(3), 11–20. https://dorl.net/dor/20.1001.1.22287396.2013.3.3.2.2

  • Hajian, M., Alitajer, S., & Mahdavinejad, M. (2020). The Influence of courtyard on the formation of Iranian traditional houses configuration in Kashan. Armanshahr Architecture & Urban Development, 13(30), 43–55. https://doi.org/10.22034/aaud.2020.133667.1554

  • Hall, M., Iceland, J., & Yi, Y. (2019). Racial separation at home and work: segregation in residential and workplace settings. Population Research and Policy Review, 38(5), 671–694. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-019-09510-9

  • Hecht, H., Welsch, R., Viehoff, J., & Longo, M. R. (2019). The shape of personal space. Acta psychologica, 193, 113–122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2018.12.009

  • Hennink, M., & Kaiser, B. (2019). Saturation in qualitative research. In P. Atkinson, S. Delamont, A. Cernat, J. W. Sakshaug, & R. A. Williams (Eds.), SAGE research methods foundations. Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526421036822322

  • Hillier, B. (2007). Space is the machine: A configurational theory of architecture. Space Syntax.

  • Hillier, B., & Hanson, J. (1984). The social logic of space. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511597237

  • Hurdley, R. (2013). Home, materiality, memory and belonging: Keeping culture. Palgrave Macmillan London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137312952

  • Karimi, A. Z., & Hosseini, B. (2012). The influence of Iranian islamic architecture on traditional houses of Kashan. In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference “Archi-Cultural Translations through the Silk Road”, Mukogawa Women’s Univ., Nishinomiya, Japan, July 14–16, 2012. https://www.mukogawa-u.ac.jp/~iasu2012/pdf/iaSU2012_Proceedings_204.pdf

  • Kasemsook, A. (2003). Spatial and functional differentiation: a symbiotic and systematic relationship. In Proceedings of the 4th International Space Syntax Symposium, London, UK, June 17–19, 2003. https://www.spacesyntax.net/symposia-archive/SSS4/fullpapers/11Kasemsookpaper.pdf

  • King, P. (2013). The politics of home: belonging and nostalgia in Western Europe and the United States. Housing Studies, 28(4), 659–660, https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2012.659957

  • Kyngäs, H., & Kaakinen, P. (2020). Deductive content analysis. In H. Kyngäs, K. Mikkonen, & M. Kääriäinen (Eds.), The application of content analysis in nursing science research (pp. 23–30). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30199-6_3

  • Lambert, M. (2019). Grounded theory. In M. Lambert (Ed.), Practical research methods in education: an early researcher's critical guide (pp. 132–141). Routledge.

  • Lewis, C., May, V., Hicks, S., Costa Santos, S., & Bertolino, N. (2018). Researching the home using architectural and social science methods. Methodological Innovations, 11(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/2059799118796006

  • Lonergan, G. (2018). Reproducing the ‘national home’: gendering domopolitics. Citizenship Studies, 22(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2017.1406455

  • Low, J. (2019). A pragmatic definition of the concept of theoretical saturation. Sociological Focus, 52(2), 131–139. https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2018.1544514

  • Luisa Maffini, A., & Maraschin, C. (2018). Urban segregation and socio-spatial interactions: a configurational approach. Urban Science, 2(3), 55. https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci2030055

  • Madanipour, A. (2003). Public and private spaces of the city. Routledge.

  • Madigan, R., & Munro, M. (1991). Gender, house and "home": Social meanings and domestic architecture in Britain. Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, 8(2), 116–132. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43029027

  • Majid, N. H. A., Denan, Z., Abdullah, F. H., & Noor, M. S. M. (2015). Shariah compliance hospitality building design: a Malay Muslim oriented architecture. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 201, 136–145. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.08.159

  • Mallett, S. (2004). Understanding home: a critical review of the literature. The Sociological Review, 52(1), 62–89. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.2004.00442.x

  • Mamani, H., Haghir, S., & Barati, N. (2017). The early Islamic centuries: a criterion for the impact of religious beliefs on architecture and decoration of Iran. Journal of History Culture and Art Research, 5(4), 321–329. https://doi.org/10.7596/taksad.v5i4.607

  • McDowell, L. (1989). Women, gender and the organisation of space. In D. Gregory & R. Walford (Eds.), Horizons in human geography (pp. 136–151). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19839-9_8

  • Pafka, E., Dovey, K., & Aschwanden, G. D. (2020). Limits of space syntax for urban design: Axiality, scale and sinuosity. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 47(3), 508–522. https://doi.org/10.1177/2399808318786512

  • Peil, T. (2020). Home. In A. Kobayashi (Ed.), International encyclopedia of human geography (2nd ed.) (pp. 53–57). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-102295-5.10193-3

  • Pirnia, M. K. (2005). Introduction to Islamic architecture of Iran. Soroosh Danesh.

  • Rashid, M. (2019). Space syntax: A network-based configurational approach to studying urban morphology. In L. D'Acci (Ed.), The mathematics of urban morphology (pp. 199–251). Birkhäuser. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12381-9_10

  • Sciama, L. (1993). The problem of privacy in Mediterranean anthropology. In S. Ardener (Ed.), Women and space: ground rules and social maps (pp. 87–111). Routledge.

  • Scicluna, R. M. (2017). Home and sexuality: the 'other' side of the kitchen. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46038-7

  • Smith, D. G., & Johnson, W. B. (2020, May 4). Gender equity starts in the home. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2020/05/gender-equity-starts-in-the-home

  • Soflaei, F., Shokouhian, M., & Zhu, W. (2017). Socio-environmental sustainability in traditional courtyard houses of Iran and China. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 69, 1147–1169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2016.09.130

  • Soleymanpour, R., Parsaee, N., & Banaei, M. (2015). Climate comfort comparison of vernacular and contemporary houses of Iran. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 201, 49–61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.08.118

  • Sommer, R. (1969). Personal space: The behavioral basis of design. Englewood Cliffs.

  • van Nes, A., & Yamu, C. (2021). Introduction to space syntax in urban studies. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59140-3

  • Wells, N. M., Evans, G. W., & Cheek, K. A. (2016). Environmental psychology. In H. Frumkin (Ed.), Environmental health: from global to local (3rd ed.) (pp. 203–230). Jossey-Bass.

  • Zerouati, W., & Bellal, T. (2020). Evaluating the impact of mass housings' in-between spaces' spatial configuration on users' social interaction. Frontiers of Architectural Research, 9(1), 34–53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foar.2019.05.005

Published
2022-04-11
How to Cite
Valibeigi, M., Maroofi, S., & Danay, S. (2022). Forgotten Territories in the Iranian Home: Issues of Segregation. Changing Societies & Personalities, 6(1), 144–163. doi:10.15826/csp.2022.6.1.167
Section
Articles