MODERNIZING THE PUBLIC SPACE: GENDER IDENTITIES, MULTIPLE MODERNITIES, AND SPACE POLITICS IN TEHRAN A DISSERTATION IN Geosciences and Sociology Presented to the Faculty of the University of Missouri-Kansas City in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by NAZGOL BAGHERI Bachelor of Architecture, 2004 Bachelor of Computer Science, 2006 Master of Urban Design, 2007 Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran Kansas City, Missouri 2013 © 2013 NAZGOL BAGHERI ALL RIGHTS RESERVED MODERNIZING THE PUBLIC SPACE: GENDER IDENTITIES, MULTIPLE MODERNITIES, AND SPACE POLITICS IN TEHRAN Nazgol Bagheri, Candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree University of Missouri - Kansas City, 2013 ABSTRACT After the Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran, surprisingly, the presence of Iranian women in public spaces dramatically increased. Despite this recent change in women’s presence in public spaces, Iranian women, like in many other Muslim-majority societies in the Middle East, are still invisible in Western scholarship, not because of their hijabs but because of the political difficulties of doing field research in Iran. This dissertation serves as a timely contribution to the limited post-revolutionary ethnographic studies on Iranian women. The goal, here, is not to challenge the mainly Western critics of modern and often privatized public spaces, but instead, is to enrich the existing theories through including experiences of a more diverse group. Focusing on the women’s experience, preferences, and use of public spaces in Tehran through participant observation and interviews, photography, architectural sketching as well as GIS spatial analysis, I have painted a picture of the complicated relationship between the architecture styles, the gendering of spatial boundaries, and the contingent nature of public spaces that goes beyond the simple dichotomy of female- male, private-public, and modern-traditional. iii Following the feminist approaches and based on my unique status as an Iranian woman and researcher, I critically examined the now classical position regarding the role of public spheres and modern spaces in building democratic societies. Part of the critique is that ideals of equality can exist alongside practices of exclusion and repression. These boundaries of exclusion are often gendered. The central theme of this study is to demonstrate that abstract analytical tools and methods merely replicate binary distinctions and mask the fact that public/private and modern/traditional do not map in simple ways with respect to gender. Meidan-e-Tajrish, Sabz-e-Meidan, and Marvi Meidancheh in Tehran accommodate a visualization of gendered space. The process by which Iranian women attach symbolic meanings to those public spaces offers ethnographic insight into the mutual construction of gender identities and public spaces. The contrasting urban locations, different design styles, and distinct social activities of the selected case studies provide a useful comparison between what appear to be distinctly modern or traditional. In what urban planners call modern spaces, Iranian women feel a greater sense of self, more freedom, and a sense of equality with men. While traditional spaces are male dominated, those places help users relate to their cultural identity, evoking a feeling of nostalgia. These places connect them to their past, just as modern spaces connect them to their future. This moving back and forth along with the social construction of public spaces that occurs in between highlight the two-sided relationship between structures and agencies in social processes and the process that each society creates its own space. Findings suggest we use caution in presuming gender as an essential category. Binary categorization of modern/tradition and public/private in urban studies should be carefully validated as such categorizations often vary across space and time boundaries. iv The faculty listed below, appointed by the Dean of the School of Graduate Studies, have examined a dissertation titled “Modernizing the Public Space: Gender Identities, Multiple Modernities, and Space Politics in Tehran”, presented by Nazgol Bagheri, candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy degree, and hereby certify that in their opinion it is worthy of acceptance. Supervisory Committee Steven L. Driever, Ph.D., Committee Chair and Research Advisor Department of Geosciences Shannon Jackson, Ph.D. Department of Sociology and Anthropology Wei Ji, Ph.D. Department of Geosciences Jejung Lee, Ph.D. Department of Geosciences Douglas Bowles, Ph.D. Social Science Consortium v CONTENTS ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ................................................................................................ viii LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................. xi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................ xiii Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 1 Dissertation Goals ........................................................................................... 4 Dissertation Structure ..................................................................................... 5 2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE ................................................................................... 10 Envisioning Democratic Public Spaces ......................................................... 12 Defining ‘Public’ Space .................................................................... 12 Ambiguities/Dimensions of Public Space ......................................... 16 Changing Nature of Public Space ...................................................... 29 A Public Space Model ....................................................................... 31 Places of Public Gathering in Iran ..................................................... 32 Multiple Modernities and Modern Urban Planning ....................................... 38 Multiple Modernities and Islam ......................................................... 40 Modern Urban Planning Practices ..................................................... 42 Rapid Modernization in Early Twentieth-Century Tehran ................ 45 Mutual Construction of Gender Identities and Public Spaces ....................... 48 Gendering the Spaces of Modernity: Gender and Space ................... 48 Feminist Approaches in Geography ................................................... 56 vi Research Objectives ....................................................................................... 59 3. METHODS: GEO-ETHNOGRAPHY OF PUBLIC SAPCES.................................. 63 Field Study .................................................................................................... 63 GIS Spatial Visualization and Analysis ......................................................... 69 Geo-Ethnography of Meidans in Tehran ....................................................... 72 4. RESEARCH SETTINGS ........................................................................................... 79 A geographical history of Tehran .................................................................. 79 Bala Shahr and Paeen Shahr ........................................................................ 103 Meidan-e-Tajrish.......................................................................................... 107 Sabz-e-Meidan and Marvi Meidancheh ....................................................... 111 5. DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS .................................................................... 116 Situating the Data ......................................................................................... 117 What Maps Tell and Do Not Tell ................................................................ 124 Women’s Narrative: Moving Beyond Boundaries in Everyday Life .......... 140 6. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ..................................................................... 152 APPENDIX A. Interview Guidelines ................................................................................................ 157 REFERENCES .................................................................................................................... 159 VITA .................................................................................................................................... 176 vii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure Page 2-1: Models of Public Space (source: Montgomery, 1998) ................................................... 17 2-2: Modern vs. Traditional Squares (Source: Krier, 1990, also cited in Carmona et al, 2003:71) ................................................................................................................................. 19 2-3: Three types of activities in public spaces (categorized by Gehl, 1971) ......................... 22 2-4: Different dimensions of human experience in bazaars ................................................... 28 2-5: A Model of Public Space ................................................................................................ 32 3-1: Mixed-methods Approach: Combining Different Layers of Data ................................ 73 4-1: Tehran with the Alborz Mountains in the background ..................................................