The Dialectic of Subject and Space: Women in Formal and Informal Spaces (A Case Study on Women in Kamyaran City)

This research, relying on the theoretical theme of the spatiality of social relations, attempts to have a qualitative analysis of the subjective construction of female teachers in formal and informal spaces in Kamyaran City. The theoretical approach is taken from a critical tradition which focuses on the centrality of the society and analyzes subjectivity in the context of space.

For data collection, direct observation and in-depth interview were used. For data analysis, the method of thematic analysis was used.

The findings have been categorized under 4 main themes and 20 sub-themes. It was concluded that female teachers adopt themselves to the formal space of schools through a kind of public transcript. However, they secretly resist school’s disciplinary mechanisms by means of a hidden transcript. On the contrary, in informal spaces, female teachers use public transcript not as a means to adopt themselves to the disciplinary mechanisms but as a way of expressing their own femininity. They actually try to represent their feminine self through participating in intimate gatherings, communicating with the opposite sex and enjoying leisure time.

In other words, in informal spaces, women’s attempt to construct a hidden transcript for self-defense decreases, and their attempt to empower their feminine agency increases, something which is usually realized through activities such as face de-masking, bodily representation and seizing existent spaces.