Document Type : Original Article
Subjects
The discourse of space as a predetermined entity, rather than clarifying the social relations, including class relations, that exist within space, and instead of focusing on the production of space and its corresponding social relations, research falls into the trap of space itself. The questions that this article tries to find answers to are:
-What policies do the types of urban development plans and programs originate from, or what are the forces and relations that produce these plans, and based on what mechanism and stimulus do they seek to create change in space?
-What is the relationship of these plans to the concept of dispossession?
The theoretical basis of the present article is based on the critical paradigm, and its methodological philosophy is rooted in the interpretive paradigm.
The formulation of dominant discourse for spatial relations can be explained as follows:
The dominant discourse of urban planning in Iran reproduces the status quo by reducing spatial relations to mere physical issues. The underlying layer of this approach is that planned space is an objective and scientific entity possessing a neutral nature. By understanding space as a scientific object, the dominant logic begins to diagnose space as a pathological entity. This type of phrasing makes it easy for specialists in the planning system, such as architects and urban planners, to incorporate medical interventions into the space. Space is considered one of the means of production within the capitalist mode of production, and it is used with the intention of producing surplus value. The important issue is that today, production no longer occurs solely in space, but now space is also produced in the process of capitalist progress. Uneven development refers to the fact that social development occurs at varying speeds and in different directions across different places. Uneven development should be understood as a completely specific process that is both unique to capitalist societies and rooted in the fundamental social relations of the capital-based mode of production. Any exchange of goods and services (including labor) almost always involves a change of coordinates and location. They define an intersecting set of spatial displacements that create a distinct geography of human interaction. Spatial and territorial divisions of labor emerge from within these intersecting processes of exchange that exist throughout space. Geographical uneven development is thus a product of capitalist activity. The issue of cities becoming a place for the establishment of large companies and knowledge-based institutions, such as universities, research centers, or cultural industries, can be strategically an arena of competition between different cities. As an example of the competition between spaces in Tehran, we can mention the competition between the city's higher education spaces and universities. So far, more than five universities in the city have considered developing their spaces, and for some of them, development plans have been prepared and approved to justify the necessity of development and realize the ideological proposition of the public good. The absorption of surplus has entailed repeated urban reconstruction conflicts, often referred to as constructive destruction, which have frequently had a class dimension. It is the poor, the deprived, and those expelled from political power who suffer disproportionately from these conflicts.
Currently, the process of displacement in the implementation of urban projects is intensifying. Displacement is an important step towards creating a real estate market where the land and housing market is not already thriving. So that the land in the rent gap that begins to operate finds greater use for capital accumulation. In a city like Tehran, the commodification and privatization of public spaces, social housing, transportation, and other areas in recent years have created vast opportunities for the accumulation of surplus capital to be exploited. The corporatization and privatization of previously public assets, including universities and urban spaces, through the justification of various development plans, indicate a new wave of enclosure of public spaces.
The set of interwoven relationships through various urban policies and their manifestation in the form of numerous plans and programs leads to the production of a system of reality in which various matters provide the grounds for displacement and such concepts through a kind of naturalization. In fact, urban policies are given spatial expression through various plans and programs. Simultaneously, we are faced with a set of informal relations and forces that confront the surrounding space with a different logic. Since the aforementioned set of complex relations, through this method of space-making, progresses in a state that constantly allows for the formation of conflict, the logical end of the different methods of space-making leads to a state that is referred to as a space of conflict or a conflict of forces. This state actually expresses the issue that, as the saying goes, wherever there is power, there is also resistance. Our set of lived spaces is somehow created through the conflict of such forces.
The authors are thankful to some reviewers who criticize and remind us some discoursive considerations during research.
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
