Modern Architecture, Spatial Precarity and the Female Body in the Domestic Spaces in Iran

Abstract

Iranian home is used as private, semi-private and public spaces. It has kept its traditional functions despite alterations in its structure and is a space for women to engage in caretaking and housekeeping activities. In this paper, I will discuss how modern architecture and its consequences such as the deletion of women-only spaces called Andarooni, has not acknowledged women's appropriation of the domestic space as it is not conformed to the Iranian lifestyle and patterns of social relations. Using ethnography, participant observation and informal conversations with Iranian women, I investigate the characteristics of the contemporary home which reveal how disappearing privateness of the domestic space has contributed to women's precarious bodily freedom in domestic spaces.