Women’s Memories of Oudlājān: From A Communitarian Neighbourhood to A Placeless City

The aim of my project is to give a narrative form to the Oudlājān neighbourhood of Tehran (the old Jewish quarter), collecting memories and stories of the Jewish women who used to live there and then moved out during the 1940s. Living in Oudlājān had guaranteed the cohesiveness of the Jewish community and the quarter was a key element in the construction of Jewish "belonging" to the Iranian homeland. My analysis has started with the early 1930s, an era dominated by the figures of Reza Shah and then, in the 1940s, by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. One important aspect, which I am taking into deep consideration for this period, is the reconstruction of the memories and the daily life inside the Jewish quarter. The focus is on three main aspects, like the representation and description of the quarter, the daily life of women in Oudlājān and the sense of place they shared with the quarter. The second chapter reconstructs the profound transformation that Oudlājān has faced from the 1950s, in its physical, demographic, social and cultural aspects, affecting also the social relations between the residents. During the 1950s, the gradual abandonment of the old Jewish quarter of Tehran began. This second chapter aspires to give a narrative form to the history of the internal migration of the Jewish community of Oudlājān and in particular to the women of this community. Through a collection of memories and life stories, the aim is to retrace the history of a generation that had experienced a deep cultural and religious transition from a community social life in the quarter to a secular society in Tehran. The last chapter, which aims to give an insight into the situation of the Oudlājān quarter today, attempts to reconstruct the strong relationship that still binds the former dwellers with their old quarter. Even though the Jewish community of Tehran does not live in Oudlājān anymore, the quarter is still a fundamental part of the community’s heritage. In particular, Oudlājān still represents, for many Jews, the source of their Iranian identity, as the place where their roots originated. The research has been carried out through a qualitative approach, following the guidelines laid down in the work of Luca Ricolfi, “La ricerca qualitativa” (1997). The fieldwork phase has been a fundamental part of my research, which is carried out through a specific data collection method, which is based on a combination of observation and participation. By making some of the most important assumptions of the ethnographic research as my own, I brought forward what Bronisław Malinowski first defined as ‘participant observation’. This has been possible through a series of different fieldwork research studies that I have conducted in Tehran and in particular in the Oudlājān quarter during the first years of my Ph.D. research. During these months of intense research, I was able to collect different interesting data, which have helped me to better understand my research objective. The first sources of this research are autobiographical interviews. All the research is, indeed, based on a collection of stories and memories composed through different interviews with women who lived in the Oudlājān neighbourhood or have memories of their families living there during the first half of the twentieth century. During the interviews, testimonies of some men who have emotionally talked about their mothers, grandmothers and their life in the quarter were also collected. Moreover, the research has been conducted through the collection and then analysis of various ethnographical data. I have collected sources also from direct observations (especially attendingreligious ceremonies and participating in different social activities), informal conversations, and private written sources, like personal letters, photographs and family memories.