Where is my place? Native home and culture in Iranian immigrants' homemaking

This research investigates homemaking of culturally diverse groups. Homemaking is a process, which is created by residents through the understanding of forms and belongings to represent and celebrate events throughout new structures and objects. Homemaking also is influenced by residents¿ domestic traditions. The investigation of this phenomenon is the focus of this study. Several questions are discussed, partly related to understanding the meaning of home among immigrants, and partly aiming to discover the relation between homemaking and immigrants¿ previous home in their house country. In order to answer the research questions, the present study examines the tensions of immigrants to change different parts of their houses to understand how their homemaking is affected by their domestic culture and memories of their house in their native country. The research contains two main parts. The first part explains a theoretical framework and the bodies of knowledge, while the second part focuses on the analysis of findings and conclusions. In the second part of the research, a study on transformation of domestic traditions on modern house architecture in Tehran aims at discovering respective achievements related to the use of space based on cultural values. In addition, similarities and differences between immigrants¿ current houses in two different host countries and their previous houses in their native countries are observed and examined. Throughout this part, those aspects of domestic tradition, which are transferred by immigrants in the settling process, are investigated. The city of Tehran is considered as a benchmark to achieve all documents from the immigrant houses in their native country during the second Pahlavi period. In addition, as the host cities, Hamburg from Germany and Zürich from Switzerland are studied to answer the research questions with a comparative analysis from Iranian families. In addition, four types of modern houses, including detached houses, row houses, high-rise apartments, and slum houses (Alunak), built in 1940-1979 in Tehran, are examined to understand the immigrants¿ previous houses. The results of this research reveal that homemaking among immigrants serves the creation of the feeling of being at home pursued by immigrants¿ culture in order to recall their houses in Tehran. Results unravel a strong relationship between the immigrants¿ domestic traditions in Iran and their homemaking in Zürich and Hamburg. The Iranian traditional aspects commonly introduce influential factors in homemaking of Iranian immigrants. Some common findings of homemaking process, which are the results of the transformation of Iranian immigrants¿ domestic culture to Zürich and Hamburg, introduce an adaptation of the original Iranian house according to several common factors as follows: ¿ Renovation of the interior arrangement of spaces like living room and kitchen based on their houses in Tehran. ¿ The importance of privacy forces the famili