Abstract

Thus far, studies on the politics of gendered identities and spatial (in)justice in the Islamic Republic of Iran have mainly focused on the negative role of spatialization in the formation and perpetuation of a heteropatriarchal normativity. Little attention has been paid to the dialectical relationship between space and power as well as to the possibilities of women’s agency in challenging, contesting and reconstructing gendered spaces. This article aims to illustrate the multifaceted-ness of women’s spatial experiences by foregrounding two points: the permeability of the hegemonic spaces and the fluidity of the women’s identity as being both objects and subjects of conduct. Ramita Navai’s topographical life writing City of Lies: Love, Sex, Death, and the Search for Truth in Tehran offers unique insights into women’s everyday navigations of space in the capital city of Iran. It is argued that the central and historic street of Vali Asr is depicted as heterotopia or the locus of incompatible—i.e. multiple, heterogeneous and inherently paradoxical—spaces. While the oppressive power wants the street and the city as a closed system, female citizens use various strategies of refusal such as creation of secret gatherings, annihilation of the self and production of counter-memories and counter-histories to open up the spaces and reimagine an other form of subjectivity. It is concluded that the existing socio-spatial dialectic allows the possibility of interpreting gendered spaces in Tehran as social processes of symbolic encoding, decoding and recoding.

摘要

迄今为止，关于伊朗伊斯兰共和国性别身份和空间（不）正义的政治研究主要集中在空间化在异父权规范性的形成和延续中的负面作用。很少有人关注空间与权力之间的辩证关系，以及女性在挑战、竞争和重建性别空间中的可能性。本文旨在通过突出两点来说明女性空间体验的多面性：霸权空间的渗透性和女性作为行为对象和主体的身份的流动性。拉米塔·纳瓦伊的地形生活写作谎言之城：爱、性、死亡和在德黑兰寻找真理提供对伊朗首都女性日常太空航行的独特见解。有人认为，Vali Asr 的中心和历史街道被描绘成异托邦或不相容的场所——即多重、异质和内在矛盾的空间。压迫性的权力希望街道和城市成为一个封闭的系统，而女性公民则使用各种拒绝策略，如创造秘密聚会、消灭自我、制造反记忆和反历史来打开空间和重新想象另一种形式的主观性。得出的结论是，现有的社会空间辩证法允许将德黑兰的性别空间解释为符号编码、解码和重新编码的社会过程。