The Social Construction of Tolerance in Everyday Urban Life

From the perspective of cultural studies, tolerance as a social construct is a way to avoid conflicts between people. Tolerance as a constructed concept refers to how people perceive, interpret, and experience it in everyday life. Tolerance arises from structural conditions, context, social status, discourses, and the worlds of urban life. Tolerance is considered an important issue in different societies, cultures, and political systems. In the present study, the authors attempted to investigate the concept of tolerance, its process and mechanisms, its requirements and forms in the context of everyday urban life. The following research question was posed: How do people in the context of everyday urban life understand and interpret the concept of tolerance as a meaningful social action and experience?  

The research method of the study is grounded theory. The research questions focus on the interaction between people or the interaction of them with specific fields as well as processes, which are usually not possible to answer quantitatively.Among the different branches of grounded theory, according to the fluidity of the research topic and the gender, variety, and data, the postmodern branch of grounded theory was used.For sampling, according to the research approach and problem and based on the experimental and theoretical literature, we decided to adopt prototypes from people who, according to their job, their living situation and relationship need to show tolerance the most in their daily lives as citizens. Then, other samples were selected during the research process based on the theoretical needs of the researchers.

Analysis of the data using Clark's position analysis method (the postmodern branch of grounded theory) shows that tolerance-based action is a fluid and scaled concept consisting of three dimensions: passive tolerance or surrender, active tolerance, and intolerance. These dimensions come together under the mechanism of tolerance-making. The results also show that the concept of tolerance (based on the two elements of consciousness and agency), is included in surrender, tolerance, and intolerance dimensions. Finally, ‘ambiguous toleration’ is considered a central phenomenon of research.People who experience being in a chaotic and uncertain life in Tehran, living in an atmosphere full of individualism, ontological insecurity, facing feelings of turmoil, apprehension, anxiety, experiencing rapid change, cultural and economic gaps, facing identity crises, urban crises, and rapid socio-cultural changes make constant choices in their orientations toward a tolerance-based approach. In the way of expressing mentalities and actions along with exaggerating the moral concepts of the society such as tolerance, one tries to represent the hidden mentalities and patterns  produced and reproduced by citizens in everyday urban life. Tolerance is a concept manifested in a distorted way due to various factors and representations, with the elements of submission and failure, despair, and frustration. The dualism of power-weakness, urban space and urban cultures, communication and understanding, maintaining peace, avoiding conflicts, commitment and the concept of love, utility, boundaries of action, reformism, mistrust, social change, and values are factors and motives for tolerance-based actions in everyday urban life.  The gender, social class, historical memory, socialization, beliefs and personalities, cultural policy and representational crisis, economic disruptions, positioning, revenge and justice, and self-censorship interaction on resentment and isolation are the main categories in this study.