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Spaces for Civil Society Action in Tehran, Iran (Human Rights Watch Iran 2015; Human Rights Watch 2012; Peterson 2010)

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Spaces for Civil Society Action in Tehran, Iran (Human Rights Watch Iran 2015; Human Rights Watch 2012; Peterson 2010) Creating Space (s) for Civil Society in Tehran, Iran Women negotiating the ‘Red Line’ of Civil Society Action in Tehran M.Sc. Thesis Jette Swinkels Wageningen University March 2016 Newsha.2015. Exhibition in a ‘private’ gallery in Tehran, Iran1 Jette Swinkels M.Sc. thesis report International Development Studies Wageningen University Specialization: Disaster Studies March 2016 Thesis code: SDC-80733 Supervisors: Bram Jansen and Joost Jongerden 1 For security reasons the names of persons and organizations who participated in this study are changed. Names in this thesis report are all pseudonyms. 2 Abstract This thesis explores the relation between civil society practices and space in Iran. Generally, in the academic literature the public sphere is related to the development of a civil society in a country. Research fails to look at the public sphere and at civil society as something that is socially constructed by the practices and activities of people. Therefore, this study focusses on spaces that people create by their practices and activities. In this research, civil society as well as space is understood as socially constructed, alive and as constantly negotiated in a certain spatial context. The research is conducted in Tehran, Iran, and by means of ethnographic research methods it discovers how women by their practices and activities create spaces for civil society action in Iran. Inspired on the spatial triad offered by Lefebvre and the Civic Driven Change framework of Biekart and Fowler, it looks at spaces of everyday life of women and how these influence the creation of spaces for civil society action. It found that women by their practices and activities create different spaces for civil society, and that on the same time civil society emerges from these spaces. Thus, it found that civil society creates its own space for social action. In Tehran, civil society does not only emerges from public spaces but also out of created spaces for civil society action in private and hybrid spaces. Moreover, it found that in Tehran public spaces for civil society action are ordered by red lines, presented by the authorities in Iran. These red lines order spaces of civil society action, but are on the same time negotiated, resisted and challenged by civil society action. Space (s) for civil society are thus on the same time conceived, lived and perceived. This research will contribute to the understanding of the creation of space for civil society in Tehran, Iran. Keywords: civil society, space, public, private, Islamic Republic Iran 3 Preface The purpose of this research was to explore how women create and negotiate spaces for civil society in the capital of Iran, Tehran. It may sound like a cliché, but doing fieldwork in Tehran, Iran, was one of the most inspiring, scary and rewarding things I have ever done in my life. I owe a lot to the people I met during my field research. People who wanted to talk to me, share their visions of society and who had the patience to explain me everything I wanted to know. I deeply respect the women and men I have met who have the courage, energy and determination to, day in day out, try to improve the situation for the people in Iran. Furthermore, I would like to thank Dr. Bram Jansen and Dr. Joost Jongerden who supported me during the fieldwork and supervised me in the writing process. In the first week of my fieldwork I visited the Ebrat museum. The Ebrat museum is a former prison, in which the Shah, the monarch of Iran tortured its (in most cases) Islamic dissidents. The museum is now open for the public to see this horrors. The museum was full of visuals, including, martyrs methods, blood on the floor and puppets of dead prisoners. Above the wall of the entrance of the former prison cells there was written: ‘Freedom is never free’. I asked the tour guide, a former detainee, of the prison, where this sentence stood for. He told me it stood for all the brave people, including the current leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, who revolted against the brutal practices of the Shah against religious people. For him the sentence stood for the freedom these people had to give up to attain more freedom. Ebrat means lesson from the past. However, for me this felt like an enormous contradiction. Isn’t the government - that this tour guide clearly supported -does not do the same thing towards the opposition? And, why have people not learned from the past? During my fieldwork and the time I was writing my thesis, these questions kept going through my mind. Maybe the people who wrote this on the wall were right; does freedom even exists at all? And, if freedom does not exists where do people then fight for? Is it all worth it? The price that people in Iran have to pay for a bit more freedom is very high – on a daily basis Iranians are arrested or sometimes even executed by authorities in their struggle for more freedom and their activities for what they believe to be a better and more ‘free’ society (Human Rights Watch 2015). In Tehran, the lack of freedom is visible and you can feel it constantly, everywhere you go. Every time when you walk in the streets or when you have to wear a hijab, see the vans of the morality police, when you want to party, when you need to call an alcohol dealer to get some beer or wine and when you go to a ‘private’ gallery to look at artwork. To experience the lack of freedom and to talk with people who fight for a more just and inclusive society showed me that one should never give up the hope for a more free society. Even if it goes very slow and 4 the change is little, people continue in their activities and push back against the restrictions set by the authorities. Freedom or the lack of it, is conceptual hard to define, it could mean something totally different for any person in a given society. The way I understand it, freedom means a society in which everyone experiences freedom to live the way they want without taking someone else’s freedom. For me this would be an ideal society; to live and let live. This sometimes feels like a utopian future, especially in Iran. For now, I hold on to what Sarah, my host in Iran and an inspiring artist told me: ‘Freedom is in the mind, and the mind is never bound to the borders of a society’ (Sarah 2015). In my mind I am back in Tehran. As I walk on the street; my hair blows in the wind and the afternoon sun is burning in my face and on my uncovered shoulders and legs. On the background the Mosque calls for prayers. When I arrive on Vanak Square, it is crowded, not with cars but with people. They are laughing, drinking, playing games and discussing politics on one of the many bars around the square. A woman and a man are making music in the middle of the square, heaps of people have gathered around them and are enjoying their beautiful voices. I take a sip of my cold beer and cheer with Sarah and her friends on all the beautiful things the world has to offer. Jette Swinkels March 2016 5 Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................................. 3 Preface .................................................................................................................................................... 4 Glossary of Terms ............................................................................................................................. 8 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 9 1.1 Aim, Objectives and Research questions .................................................................................... 11 1.2 Outline of the Thesis ................................................................................................................... 12 2. Methodology and Methods of Data Collection.............................................................................. 13 2.1 Research Approach ...................................................................................................................... 13 2.2 Choice of, and Gaining Access to, the Research Field ................................................................ 14 2.2.1 The Research Field ............................................................................................................... 14 2.2.2 Research Population and Method of Sampling .................................................................... 15 2.2.3 Gaining Access ..................................................................................................................... 16 2.3 Research Techniques ................................................................................................................... 18 2.3.1 Observations ......................................................................................................................... 18 2.3.2 Semi-structured interviews ................................................................................................... 19 2.3.3 Descriptions .......................................................................................................................... 21 2.4 Data Analysis .............................................................................................................................. 21 2.5 Research Evaluation .................................................................................................................... 22 2.5.1 Reliability ............................................................................................................................
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