Suchergebnisse

Drawing on sociological approaches to urbanism and secularization, as well as the affective turn in anthropology, this article explores the implementation of secular policies in Iran after the 1936 Unveiling Decree. I argue that constructing transparent social relations reflects the emergence of a new level of secular binds and relies upon the modalities of urban infrastructure and architecture. I find that modernization and secularization in Iran are interlinked by transformations in urban planning that tended to eliminate sites of ambiguity and to homogenize structures and forms of interaction in public and domestic spaces. The article makes use of autobiographical narratives that give witness to manifest changes in the urban atmosphere between the 1930s and 1950s. I will show how the Pahlavi regime took an active role in attempting to build a secular city by invoking segmentations and divisions in urban spaces to promote a secular atmosphere and limit religious ideas.

A peculiar aura of uncertainty and difficulty of knowing surrounds class, and especially its transmission from one generation to another. In this programmatic text we trace silences around the reproduction of class through our ethnographic research in Kenya, Egypt, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, and Palestine, and among migrant diasporas that link those countries with Somalia, Afghanistan, Western Europe, Russia, and the Arab Gulf states. We propose a comparative and nuanced attention to the ways in which concealment and silences - that is, ways of not displaying things or not speaking openly about them even while they may be known; secrets - that is, knowledge that is actively prevented from circulating; and ignorance - that is, ways of not knowing or not addressing something, together contribute to the reproduction of social status across generations. That reproduction, we argue, is in need of not being known or addressed because the moral and institutional claims and the public image that are inherent to status are frequently contradicted or complicated by the process in which the resources have been gathered, and by the ways in which they are passed on. The passing on of status from one generation to another therefore needs to be understood in a way that is not restricted to its discursive and performative dimension of explicit markers and accomplishments. Marks of distinction, accomplishment of status - and also stigmas of discrimination and stories of failure - are likely to consist equally of aspects that are concealed, forcibly kept secret, or not addressed. At the same time, every display and utterance that qualitatively or quantitatively values a person's or group's standing vis-à-vis others is likely to be enabled and accompanied by blind spots and silences. These can be best studied from the bottom up through a qualitative enquiry.