Entering Iranian Homes: Privacy Borders and Hospitality in Iranian Movies

Foroogh Mohammadi; Lisa-Jo K. van den Scott

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.19.2.03

Authors

Foroogh Mohammadi Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1709-0941
Lisa-Jo K. van den Scott Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7442-6918

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.19.2.03

Keywords:

Frontstage, Backstage, Privacy, Space and Place, Iranian Cinema, Hospitality

Abstract

The architecture of homes in Iran has changed significantly over the past four decades since the 1979 Iranian revolution. We ask how these architectural changes shift neighborhood relationships and how they transform the Iranians’ hospitality rituals and practices. We conducted a qualitative content analysis of eighteen Iranian movies filmed after the 1979 revolution. They allowed us to make comparisons among various dwelling patterns and neighborhood relationships. We argue that the representations of neighborhood relationships reflect these changes, demonstrating the impact of architecture on interactions. Our focus in this article is on borders of privacy, power dynamics in the neighborhoods and among families, and communication forms to better understand the impact of changing architecture on hospitality through the lens of cinema. Additionally, we engage with Goffman’s (1956) concepts of frontstage and backstage, demonstrating that these are not dichotomous, although they are opposites, and there can be a thinning of frontstage along with a thickening of backstage. Entrances to homes are often gradual, and visitors may gradually penetrate through layers of the frontstage as they become closer (emotionally and in space) to the heart of the home’s (and its occupants’) backstage.

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Author Biographies

Foroogh Mohammadi, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada

Foroogh Mohammadi is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. She studies the racialized experiences of home and belonging among Iranian immigrants in Atlantic Canada and Ontario. She has published in the Space and Culture journal. Her interests in teaching and research include the Sociology of Culture, Space, Place, and Time, International Migration, Race and Ethnicity, Qualitative Methods, and Environmental Sociology.

Lisa-Jo K. van den Scott, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada

Lisa-Jo K. van den Scott is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Memorial University, Newfoundland, Canada. Her work revolves around the spaces and places of our everyday environments. This includes studies on temporal resistance, the sociology of walls, and mundane objects. She is currently writing a book about the introduction of public housing to Inuit in Arviat, Nunavut. In addition, she studies public loss, such as in reality television and in election concessions speeches. She has co-authored a textbook on qualitative methods, Qualitative Research in Action, 4th ed., and co-edited a companion reader, The Craft of Qualitative Research. She is currently the editor-in-chief of the journal Symbolic Interaction.

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