maryam isari

Homelessness is a result of a chain of structural issues, in the meantime, urban governance in many cities of the world is trying to provide support services to reduce the harms of this group of people. In contemporary Tehran, the history of providing services to homeless people can be traced. Based on this, it is necessary to evaluate harm reduction policies such as temporary residences known as homeless shelters (Garmkhaneh). Findings, which were conducted through in-depth qualitative interviews and field observations of four women's homeless shelters in Tehran, show that in parallel with providing various services to homeless women, the shelters also try to produce tame and normalized bodies from them. Disciplinary policies in homeless shelters, which in many cases are in opposition to the lifestyle of drug users, cause a series of challenges and power conflicts, and in a paradoxical way, it can cause homeless women to be excluded instead of integrated. Additionally, the policy of Tehran Municipality to outsource the provision of social services to homeless people to the private sector has led to employment precarity and dissatisfaction among employees of contracting companies working in homeless shelters, which has intensified conflicts and tensions inside the shelters. The findings show that the women's shelters are facing a range of challenges in various fields such as client service, transorganizational challenges, personnel job status, social space challenges, management challenges and challenges related to the stratification of homeless women. Solutions are presented in order to improve the quality of services in homeless shelters.

The purpose of the present study is to identify the contexts and processes of shaping the informal life of waste pickers among Afghan workers in Tehran. The method we applied is a case study, and we have also used various observational and interviewing tools along with document analysis. We used Mixed Purposive Sampling to conduct this research, and a total of 57 individuals are interviewed, including urban managers and experts, contractors, sanitation workers, forepersons, Afghan waste pickers, and local activists and informants. The results show that various factors at the macro, medium, and micro levels facilitate the informal life of Afghan waste pickers in Tehran. These factors include economic and political situation in Afghanistan, cultural and familial features of Heratian workers, restrictive laws of Iran regarding foreigners’ employment and spatial access, working conditions and interactions in the waste field, roles played by urban hybrid governance, and finally the undignified status of this job among Iranians. Our findings show that several patterns of waste picking can be traced based on the geography of informal settlements and the diversity of economic partnerships with contractors among Afghan waste pickers in Tehran. We propose four informal economy models, including re-outsourcing, percentage partnership, maximum employer, and non-partnership with the contractor. These models of economic partnership have different implications for the power relations between waste pickers, intermediate forces, and contractors. In the re-outsourcing and non-partnership models, contractors have the least, and mediators have the most power. In comparison, the maximum employer model offers waste pickers the least autonomy and contractors the most power. Our findings reveal that there is an inseparable connection between the formal and informal realm of the waste field. They show that the informal arena is more connected to urban governance and urban political economy and less to the developmental issues.

Blood pressure is one of the vital signs, and is the pressure of circulating blood on the walls of blood vessels. When the large arteries lose their natural elasticity and strength, and the smaller ones are narrowed, blood pressure rises and the pressure is exerted by blood on the walls of blood vessels. High blood pressure is dangerous and very harmful for the heart and blood vessels, and is a major cause of mortality in all nations. Many patients tend to use herbal products for controlling their blood pressure, as they are concerned of the side effects of the chemical drugs. There are huge amount of research work exploring the safety and efficacy of a single herb, or combined herbal products on lowering blood pressure, among which some have shown certain effects, and some are negative in results. Grape seed, Garlic, Saffron, Green and White Mulberry, Quince, and some other herbs have more scientific evidence in lowering blood pressure. In this study, we systematically reviewed the scientific literature of clinical trials and animal studies, in which the safety and effectiveness of herbs on lowering blood pressure were evaluated.

 Divorce rate has been growing in recent years in Iran, resulting in an increase in the number of women and men involved with the post-divorce consequences. In the last five years, more than 800,000 divorces have taken place in Iran, meaning more than one and a half million men and women underwent divorce.A brief look at the literature of this field shows that despite the importance of the family system and the damage caused by divorce, there has been little sociological research in Iran on this issue with the adoption of qualitative approaches, and the few existing researches, all of which have used quantitative approaches, generally focus on negative effects of divorce on children, and little research has been conducted on the effects of divorce on the life of divorced men and women. Thus, the study of how divorced subjects encounter the consequences of divorce and the ways in which they rebuild their lives after divorce is a commonly neglected domain in Iranian sociology. The purpose of this study is to investigate the typology of life reconstruction patterns of post-divorce life. The present research is devoid of a predetermined theoretical framework and subsequent hypotheses. But the sensitive theoretical concepts of this research are largely influenced by Bourdieu's theories on the different types of capital, habitus, and hysteresis. The present study is based on qualitative methodology and case study method. As such, by adopting a qualitative approach and semi-structured in-depth interview technique, we study the ways in which divorced subjects go through post-divorce reconstruction of their lives. This research also seeks the typology of a variety of patterns of reconstructing life after divorce. A type is a set of states or individuals that share at least one feature of the study. The results of in-depth interviews with 36 divorced women and men in Tehran revealed four patterns of post-divorce reconstruction based on the subjective and objective specifications of respondents.These patterns include progressive reconstruction, two patterns of dual and transitional reconstruction, and retrograde reconstruction.Based on this, the individuals in the first category have favourable subjective and objective conditions after divorce and consider divorce as an act to improve their quality of life, and by taking an active and progressive approach ahead, they rebuild their lives successfully.But those who manifest the dual rebuilding patterns generally suffer from the hysteresis between the subjective and the external object, and if this incompatibility is resolved, they will be able to move towards either the first or the fourth reconstruction pattern in the future.Eventually, for subjects in the retrograde reconstruction category, the divorce event led to a backward and retrogressive motion due to their disadvantaged mentality and objectivity in dealing with post-divorce life.The findings also show that the subjective barriers to reconstructing life after divorce include: lack of psychological and emotional detachment from the ex-spouse, negative emotions and orientations towards divorce, traditional habitus, being non-religious, negative feedback of divorce among "significant others”.On the other hand, objective obstacles to the reconstruction of life after divorce include: old age at the time of divorce, unemployment, the lack of access to economic, social, and cultural capitals, having a child, long length of the marriage and short length of the post-divorce period.In addition, the subjective facilitators of post-divorce reconstruction include: psychological and emotional detachment from the ex-spouse, positive emotions and orientations towards divorce, modern habitus, being religious, positive feedback of divorce among "significant others”, and objective facilitators of post-divorce reconstruction include: young age at the time of divorce, employment, having access to a variety of economic, social, and cultural capitals, not having a child, short length of the marriage and long length of the post-divorce period.The findings of this study revealed that divorce causes many changes and challenges in various aspects of the life of the actors. Divorce requires emotional, sexual, psychological, economic, and social detachment. Compatibility with such detachments and efforts to create new connections leads to the success of actors in the process of reconstructing life after divorce. The results of this study showed that divorce can be considered both a threat and an opportunity for the lives of actors, and it depends on the subjective and objective factors that play the role of barriers and facilitating conditions in the process of reconstructing life after divorce.Hence, the actors who have more facilitating conditions are more likely to be in the category of progressive reconstruction than others, and subjects that have barriers and disadvantaged mental and objective conditions generally undergo a passive and retrograde reconstruction.Based on the findings of the present research, it seems that to reduce the divorce traumas and facilitate the reconstruction of post-divorce life, one can use three categories of solutions, including economic, cultural, and social solutions, as well as educational and supportive strategies.It is also important to consider the individual backgrounds of the actants in allocating strategies. For instance, Supportive and educational solutions are more vital for the actors who have divorced recently, or economic strategies are more essential for women and especially those who do not have sufficient economic, social, and cultural capital or have custody of their children. Identification of different types of exposure of the actants during reconstruction, demonstrates the amount and the type of the required support to reduce their trauma. Therefore, this research emphasizes the need for doubled support and empowerment of the individuals involved with the retrograde reconstruction pattern in intervention programs.

The purpose of this study is to present a theoretical model of interactions between urban policies and the informal life of the poor in urban space. In this regard, by reviewing and criticizing the theoretical traditions associated with the informal life of the poo, it emphasizes an alternative approach that can transcend the common dualities of formal- informal, structure- agency, and the heroic- troublemaker poor and highlights the spatial dimensions of urban politics regarding the informal life of them. This paper employs documentary method and available archive analysis to present a theoretical model about the dialectical relationship between urban politics and informal life of the poor in Iran. Accordingly, by combining Lefebvre's production theory and Foucault's relational approach to power, The study emphasizes the politics of representation and space organization politics in the triple ratio between the poor, urban politics and urban space, and demonstrate that this relational and consolidated approach can be helpful to understand the interweaving of urban politics and informal life of the poor in Iran. Finally the study shows that the outcome of urban politics about the informal life of the poor is the interaction of the mutual processes of exercising power and resistance, and considering the different types of this interaction is vital in analyzing the power struggles over the presence of the poor in the city.

Divorced women are one of the most vulnerable groups of people in society. This is not only because of negative aspects of divorce, but also because of gendered discriminative view toward their position after divorce. Therefore this study by applying qualitative approach and Grounded theory method and by using semi-structured qualitative interview technique with 18 divorced women in Tehran which got divorced more than one year, discovering the barriers of gendered culture toward post- divorce women’s social interactions and also the women’s strategies to deal with these barriers and finally the consequences of this problem in divorced women’s life. The finding show that discriminative gendered culture results the intensity of obstacles and pressures on divorced women’s social interactions in different ways, barriers which challenge their post-divorce life adjustment. These obstacles include blaming women, restricting their marriage opportunities, an objective view toward divorced women and limiting their occupation and new location. On the one hand women using different strategies to deal with these barriers such as hiding their divorce, efforts to social enhancement in other areas, remarriage and entering to new relationships, selecting converged interactive networks and avoiding non-converged interactive networks. This is while applying discriminative attitudes can result creating the consequences like decreasing social contribution and reduction of women’s social capital, declining their quality of life, increasing the feelings of social insecurity, relative deprivation, stigma, social exclusion and also increasing the likelihood of women’s engaging in social deviants and obliquities. The negative effects which not only engaged divorced women but also their children, friends and finally the whole of the society and also weaken family institution.

Despites the many efforts for controlling and reducing divorce in Iran، the rates are growing and the number of families who have experienced a divorce is increasingly rising. The ‘post-divorce life’، an matter of trivial interest in the past، has now turned into a serious issue for family sociologists. Research findings suggest that divorce often has more negative consequences for women، one of which is identity challenges. The present study employed a qualitative approach and used semi-structured in-depth interviews with 18 women to investigate women’s post-divorce identity challenges and how they redefined ‘self’ and build ‘identity’ after divorce. “Self” is a key concept in theorizing one’s being and nature، and gives the person the ability to portray her identity. The results showed that، on the event of a divorce، many changes occurred to the image and the understanding that a women had from her inner and outer self. The results also suggested that the main areas in which the women had redefined their identity were new roles، new lifestyles، new relationships، and ontological and psychological safety. Moreover، background variables including present age، age at divorce، social class، occupational status، length of marriage، having or not having children، and a traditional or modern set of habitus influenced how women dealt with post-divorce identity changes and self-redefining.

In the recent decades the family pattern in the world has gone through many changes. At the present the values and attitudes of the youth have undergone many changes also. The researches show that having sexual relationship before marriage is becoming common more than any other time. One of these premarital relationships is cohabitation which is growing in big cities like Tehran. This pattern indicates living together of couples without being married. The goal of this study is to know what the subjects interpret their behavior and what appropriate social situations helped to this phenomenon to emerge. In this research 21 men and women of that experienced cohabitation were interviewed. The findings show that this pattern of relationship is the product of modernization process and the diffusion of certain values to Iran; the process which started by coming of technological products and changes that took place in economic situation and then gradually encompassed the entire fabrics of the society. Cohabitation is part of this grand socio-economical and cultural change in recent years

In recent decades، Iranian society has faced significant changes in youth values and beliefs. Very few researches show that premarital sex is rising in Iran. This increase has gradually led to more complexities in this area. Nowadays، premarital sex has found different kinds and origins. The goal of this qualitative research is the typology of different premarital sex patterns in Iran. In this study، 54 boys and girls who have experienced such relationships were interviewed. Research findings indicate that premarital sex patterns in Iran are divided into at least six different categories. These patterns include: 1. casual relationships (prostitution patterns)، 2. Concubine relationships، 3. boy friend- girl friend relationships، 4. cohabitation relationships، 5. anti love relationships (deception patterns) and 6. relationships based on liquid love. These different patterns can be separated under three different discourses: “Pre-modern discourse” (the first and second category)، “Modern discourse” (the third، fourth and fifth category) and “Postmodern discourse” (the sixth category). Each of these discourses evokes subjects in a special way and individuals have found not only different behaviors but also different values in these discourses. Pre-modern discourse has a long last history and still remains alive but nowadays beside this discourse، there are also two other discourses -modern and postmodern- in the hidden layers of urban society which despite of their differences، they both are the result of process modernity in Iranian society; the patterns which are rising in recent years by the help of changing social and economic structures and values.