Remaking the Modern "ss1.16"

The Daily Use of “Modern” Space

The blanket that Bourdieu's theory throws over tactics as if to put out their fire by certifying their amenability to socioeconomic rationality or as if to mourn their death by declaring them unconscious, should teach us something about their relationship with any theory.
Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life

Contrary to such strategies, which localize change in visible forms and physical transformations, “tactics” are based on shifting meanings and

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functions of space over time to satisfy a particular purpose. The daily use of space does not simply follow the prescriptions embedded in the housing unit. To use is “not simply to apply, to put into practice, but to evade the prescriptions embedded in ‘official’ textuality” (Frow 1995: 48).

The shifting meanings and functions of space are clearly manifested in how the various rooms are furnished and decorated. Except for singleroom apartments, most housing units have a similar division of space. As previously mentioned, the unit is usually divided into a place for socialization and receiving guests (saala), a place for sleeping, a place for cooking, and a place for personal hygiene. The saala is usually a small room near the entrance to the apartment. It is the locus of most daily activities, ranging from socializing and watching TVto preparing food and serving it to family members and guests. It is a space that is typically furnished by the bride, who is responsible for receiving guests as well as serving them drinks and food. Currently, the bride's family buy a standard set of furniture for this room, called antireeh (from the French entrée, which indicates an informal sitting room). The set usually consists of one couch with two matching armchairs and a coffee table. Older married couples still maintain their old furniture, which consists of two or three high wooden couches that are placed along the room walls. Many families utilize one or more of these couches for sleeping at night.

The saala, which is open for visitors, is one of the main spaces used to display the social distinction and the religious identity of the family. It has the television set and the VCR if the family has one. Quranic calligraphy, religious items, calenders, clocks, posters of singers and actors, and pictures of family members may decorate its walls. Better-offfamilies usually have a glass-fronted cabinet where they display china cups and glasses that are not used daily. They also have a small high table that is moved from one side to the other to serve drinks (tea and soft drinks) to guests. The pieces of furniture do not always stay in a fixed place. They are moved from one room to another depending on the occasion and the social function of a particular space. Suad, a newly married young woman, for example, moved the antireeh from the saala to one of her two bedrooms in order to protect it from the neighbors’ children. As she explained, mothers come to visit and bring their young children with them, who not only jump on the furniture but also spill tea and water and sometimes accidentally urinate on the couch and the carpet. She furnished the saala with a straw mat and placed some mattresses on the sides for people to sit on. This space is used for receiving the neighbors, while the antireeh is saved for her husband's friends and relatives who visit from outside the neighborhood.

The preferred seat depends on the activities conducted in the saala and

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the nature of the socialization process. The seat that faces the apartment's door, which is usually closer to the window or to the balcony, is preferred when people are chatting or listening to music. It allows the person to see who is coming into the apartment and observe the outside world, an activity that people enjoy very much. When people are watching television, there is competition over the seat that faces the TV set. Families try to keep the saala clean and organized during the daytime to be ready to receive guests. At night, many families turn it into a sleeping place. Visitors are not required to remove their shoes before coming into this room, which is usually covered with a plastic mat or a carpet (during the winter or special occasions). Women, however, tend to enter the saala barefoot because they usually prefer to sit on the floor or on the couch cross-legged or squatting. Except for a very few cases of extreme religiosity and when the visitor is a total male stranger, there is no sex segregation in this room. Sisters, mothers, or wives fix the sweet strong tea that is usually served to guests. When the visitor is a stranger, the brother, the husband, or the son takes the tea from the female relative at the door and serves it by himself. With male visitors who are close to the family, young women may chat, joke, and sit in the same room. Male visitors are, however, quite restricted in their movement within the housing unit. They do not enter other rooms without invitation, while female visitors can freely follow the hostess to the kitchen and bedrooms.

As opposed to the state's original design, people do not worry about separating, ordering, and labeling spaces. The private kitchen was emphasized in the state public discourse as necessary to avoid personal injury and conflicts between neighbors who shared the same kitchen. In the new unit, however, preparing food is not limited to the kitchen. Women do not separate what is seen as “work” (preparing food, for example) from pleasure (such as socializing and watching television). In fact, the more the task is seen as time-consuming work (as is the case with stuffing vegetables and making ruqaq[thin bread] for the Sacrifice Feast), the more it is made an occasion for a festive gathering where women exchange stories and jokes, listen to music, and drink tea. A woman may feel very comfortable sitting on the bed near a window on a sunny day during winter to sort rice, to shell peas, or to peel garlic. She may bring the gasoline burner to the living room to fix tea or prepare mint syrup while chatting with others and warming the room at the same time. She may squat in the staircase to hollow out and stuffeggplants and squash with the help of some neighbors. Thus, women's daily activities continually cross the boundaries that state officials and planners projected in the new apartments as central to modern housing.

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Through practices, discourses, and rituals, people define and redefine the meanings of space and protect it against evil spirits. The bathroom, for example, which was emphasized in the state discourse as a sign of a modern and healthy family, embodies contradictory processes and activities. People use it not only for personal hygiene, bathing, and washing clothes but also as a place to perform ablution, an essential prerequisite for praying. It is also seen as the place where jinn and ‘afarit can possess (yalbis) the body and cause the person harm and pain. The person's body is vulnerable in the bathroom, making it easy for a jinn to control it. This is the reason why one should not speak or mention the name of God in the bathroom and why one repeats before entering the bathroom: “God protect me from evil and defilements” (’a‘uzu bi-llaah min al-khubs wa al-khaba’ yis). By the same token, in a Friday sermon, a sheikh describing the rules for dealing with space strongly recommended to mention God's name whenever one enters a place, especially if it is dark or deserted. This is necessary to pacify the jinn and dislocate the devil that inhabits these places. Transforming a place into a safe and blessed one was also done ritually when women slaughtered ducks and chickens on the door step of the new apartment and let the blood run down. Through such rituals and prayers, various spaces are cultivated with meanings and signification.