Analyzing the spatiality and temporality of social patterns of women’s everyday activities in Sang-e-Ladge neighborhood, Tehran

This article investigates the social patterns of women’s everyday movements in Sang-e-Ladge neighborhood (Tehran) in a week time span using representational and analytical methods in the “Time-Geography” theory. The main aim was to analyze the ways in which female residents use local spaces in their everyday social life. With a mixed methodological approach, based on qualitative survey and using snowball sampling method, the information of daily activity of 78 female residents of Sang-e-Ladge was collected in the form of narrative and descriptive datasets (diaries and direct interviews). Spatial and temporal information of daily social activities was extracted into a comprehensive database in order to analyze the social patterns of everyday activities. The analytic results revealed that the major part of woman’s social activities was arranged and took place at indoor private spaces (i) or outside the local district area (e); the public spaces (both indoor and outdoor) of the neighborhood (j and k) contained much less social activities. At the same time, analysis of “activity bundles” revealed the quality and quantity of co-presence and co-existence of social individuals in space and time fabric of the district. The analyzed activity bundles were three different types: the focal, the spatial and the temporal bundles. Temporal activity bundles are the bundles vertical to the space plane. They are produced when at least two trajectories meet each other at a definite spatial reference (a precise coordination is space plane) for a non-zero amount of time (for example when individuals stay together at a shop or a park). The density of temporal bundles revealed the places in which individuals spent their time together. The time duration in temporal bundles indicated the social significance of places they used for social activities. The main attribute of temporal bundle distribution in the neighborhood is its dispersal arrangement throughout both space and time. It means that the temporal bundles have no limit in time budgets in socially active hours, but the same fact was not applicable to their spatial distribution. The spatial bundles of activity are formed when at least two separate trajectories overlap each other in the same direction at the same time. In contrary to temporal and focal bundles, the distribution and density of spatial bundles are limited to a very narrow and specific time span of individual’s daily budgets (between 9 a.m. and 13 p.m.). They are mostly created among local shopping centers (the strongest density was recognizable between two main local traditional shopping centers). Spatial distribution of bundles shows that the public social activities are some sub-activity of other activities, not an independent daily activity. For this reason, as shown in the diagrams, the neighborhood gets almost evacuated of individuals throughout the weekends (when most shops are closed and inactive). The results of this study could be summarized in three main parts: first, the social activities of local woman residents are mostly arranged in private spaces and the role of public local spaces as places of social interactions are very slight. Second, the temporal bundles of activity are very dispersed, with no recognizable pattern, and are mainly produced in nonpublic places of the neighborhood. This indicates that women’s social networks have less internal cohesion in a way that they are unable to create a strong integrated network of social relations. Third, the spatial bundles of social activities are just partial deeds in long with other daily activities. To discuss the contribution of main findings, we must lay stress on facilitating the spatial and temporal dimensions of women’s social interactions in order to empower their everyday experience of walking and their local networks of social activities. This could be realized only when this kind of socio-spatial studies become one of the main agendas for determining the indices in planning procedure for social development of communities such as Sang-e-Ladge.