Domestic Agents: Dowries, homes, and infrastructures in Iran

Abstract

While framing the importance of everyday life as a drive for institutional exhibitions, this paper investigates the process of home making in Tehran from 1925 to 2013. The period 1925–1979 marks the rule of the Pahlavi dynasty when modernization was systematically implemented in Iran. This period ended with the Iranian revolution, which laid the foundation for a welfare state, which in spite of great promises declined in essence at the end of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency in 2013 when the country moved towards privatization while welcoming non-Western imperialism. Using domestic objects and cultural rituals, the investigation reveals how the domestic realm reflects local and global politics that have shaped the country for the last hundred years. The paper argues that the domestic realm has been a significant everyday context for mediating two grounds simultaneously: On the one hand, it pursues central planning strategies to secure various states' political gains; and, on the other, it serves as a platform for tactics that resist these strategies through spatial and material expressions.