With the gradual opening of Iranian society in the second decade after the Islamic Revolution, a number of research centers and networks have been established. Scholarly interest in Iran has also been shifting from examining the causes of the Revolution to investigating its consequences. Scholars are increasingly conducting research based on archival analysis, in-depth interviewing, participant observation and survey analysis to investigate social transformations that have taken place in Iran

Keshavarzian, A.

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Field Research, Research Design and the Tehran Bazaar

Leiden University Scholary Publications

5 0 I S I M N E W S L E T T E R  1 3 /  D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 3While it would be incorrect to say thatscholarly interest in Iran has wanedsince the Islamic Revolution, due toreal and perceived logistical difficultiesin conducting long-term field research,studies have been limited in terms oftopics and approaches. Much of the early scholarship ad-dressed macro-level research ques-tions regarding the causes of the Revo-lution, elite politics and the ideologicalbases for post-revolutionary develop-ments; the principle sources for theseanalyses were newspapers, official proclamations, memories and na-tional statistics. With the gradual opening of Iranian society in the sec-ond decade after the Revolution, several research centers and net-works have been established. Scholarly interest in Iran has also gradu-ally shifted from examining the causes of the Revolution to investigat-ing its consequences, and scholars are increasingly conducting re-search based on archival analysis, in-depth interviewing, participantobservation and survey analysis.1The emerging narratives highlight thedisparities between state rhetoric, offi-cial policies and actual social reality.These studies have begun to map a newconfiguration of social and politicalforces that weave together continuitiesand ruptures with the Pahlavi era. It isan important moment for the academiccommunity to self-consciously ponderhow and why extensive and fine-tunedfield research can contribute to our un-derstanding of both contemporary Iranand social dynamics more broadly. Field research should play a particularly privileged role in our study ofcontemporary Iran. Conducting empirically grounded research willhelp us formulate pertinent research questions, investigate assump-tions about Iranian society and lead to the re-conceptualization of an-alytical constructs. Finally, field research can allow us to assess and an-alyze the extent to which the Islamic Revolution was a s o c i a l r e v o l u-tion; that is, how changes in the state altered patterns of social rela-tions. I present these arguments by making reference to research I car-ried out on the Tehran Bazaar.Empirically based field research is not always an integral part of re-search design. For instance, most political scientists derive researchquestions from theory in the pursuit of theory testing. Hence, there is atendency to view field research as simply a mode of data collection tomeasure concepts and variables, test hypotheses and lend credence totheoretical perspectives. However, given that in Iranian and MiddleEastern studies more broadly we continue to have little information onhow societies and polities are organized and develop, there exists aneed to systematically generate an empirical base of knowledge whichcan enhance concept formation. If our goal is to better understandIran, then field research should be as much an epistemological tool asa methodological one.Field research as research formulationI came to appreciate the salience of field research while conducingcomparative research on the social structure of the Tehran Bazaar andthe central bazaars (a s w a q) in Cairo in the post-World War II era. I be-lieved that contrasting these cases would illuminate the reasons whythe Tehran Bazaar has enjoyed a central role in Iran’s economy and anumber of social movements, while its counterpart in Cairo has had afar less prominent role.While conducting preliminary research in Tehran it became quicklyapparent that since the Revolution the Bazaar’s basic institutions, in-ternal relations and position in the political economy had radicallychanged. For instance, promissory notes, which through the 1970swere a critical instrument of exchange and a means of tying togethervarious levels of the value chain, had become almost completely obso-lete and were replaced by cash and checks. Also, the literature from thepre-revolutionary era claimed that b a z a a r is actively attended religiousevents in the Bazaar and religious meetings (or h a y a ts) that were basedon guild membership.2 However, two decades after the Revolution,many b a z a a r is explained that if they did attend communal religiousevents, they were ones in their neighborhoods outside central Tehranand not necessarily connected to the Bazaar. Finally, and most funda-mentally in many senses, the interlocking and long-term networks ofResearch ApproachesWith the gradual opening of Iranian societyi n the second decade after the IslamicRevolution, a number of research centers andnetworks have been established. Scholarlyinterest in Iran has also been shifting fromexamining the causes of the Revolution toinvestigating its consequences. Scholars areincreasingly conducting research based onarchival analysis, in-depth interviewing,participant observation and survey analysist o investigate social transformationst h a t have taken place in Iran. Field Research,Research Design a n dthe Tehran BazaarThe TehranB a z a a rA R A N G KE S H A V A RZ I ANResearch Approachesimporters, wholesalers, brokers and retailers that prevailed throughmuch of the twentieth century are currently almost non-existent; theyhave been replaced by fragmented clientalistic ties to the regime andmore precarious smuggling networks. In short, our understanding ofthe Tehran Bazaar must be sensitive to historical variations, or morespecifically, changes that have occurred since the Islamic Revolution.Thus, I reformulated my research question to ask how and why thestructure of the Bazaar and state-bazaar relations changed over thelast four decades.As my research evolved it became apparent that changes in theBazaar were not simply related to incremental changes in the socioe-conomic fabric (e.g. urbanization, industrialization, or improved trans-portation), but were created and mediated by the interaction betweenstate policies and the b a z a a r is’ negotiation of these policies. Thus, wearrive at an empirical puzzle: why did the organizational structure ofthe Tehran Bazaar persist under the anti-traditional Pahlavi regime andradically alter under the Islamic Republic that sought to preserve it? Itwas only through conducting initial field research that I was able to de-velop this central research question. Had I not visited Iran it is unlikelythat I would have understood that the Bazaar’s organization and posi-tion in the political economy had undergone transformations. The sec-ondary literature made little or no reference to the transformation ofbazaars, and prominent figures in the Islamic Republic had identifiedthe b a z a a r is as a revolutionary group and ally, with the Bazaar repre-sented as an ‘authentic’ and ‘Islamic’ institution that was to be pre-served. Yet my exploratory field research generated and framed the re-search questions by identifying outcomes and processes that contra-dicted these expectations and claims.Even the most rudimentary field research can uncover new ques-tions and challenge accepted notions. For example, most Iran expertsdescribe the R e s a l a t daily newspaper and Shoma weekly as the voice ofthe ultra conservative factions (such as the Islamic Coalition Associa-tion and Society of the Islamic Associations of Tehran’s Guilds andBazaar) that allegedly represent and receive support from theb a z a a r is .3 Yet there is little evidence of actual b a z a a r i readership ofthese papers. If one walks through the Bazaar and pays attention to thenewspapers present in their stores, it becomes evident that they al-most unanimously read H a m s h a h r i and I r a n, the two most mainstreamand commonly read newspapers in Tehran. Moreover, when inter-viewed, b a z a a r is rarely, if ever, made reference to R e s a l a t. To lendsome credibility to these observations I asked the newspaper peddlersin the Bazaar what newspapers sold the most copies. Without excep-tion peddlers responded that H a m s h a h r i and I r a n were the best sellersand some even said that they stopped carrying other broadsheets.Next, I investigated the newspaper kiosks surrounding the Bazaar thathave a wide selection of papers ranging from the continually changingcollection of reformist papers to arch conservative papers, such asJam-e Jam, R e s a l a t, and the afternoon K a y h a n. I noticed that at the endof the day their heaping stacks of H a m s h a h r i and I r a n were generallysold out, and the reformist selections were well on their way to beingsold out. Meanwhile, a large number of issues of Resalat and other con-servative papers, in small supply to begin with, remained unsold. The point here is that there is plenty of ‘data’ available if one is will-ing to use some creative, even if imprecise measurement and data col-lection techniques. Researchers will almost inevitably have to adjusttheir conceptions and develop new questions once they start gather-ing even the most cursory data. In terms of the Bazaar, the evidence ofnewspaper readership, along with other observations, indicated signif-icant disparities between state-recognized associations that are said torepresent ‘the bazaar’ or ‘the b a z a a r is’ and the practices and senti-ments of traders within the historic marketplace. Field research and concept formationClose range field research (e.g. archival analysis, in-depth interview-ing and participant observation) tends to highlight complexities of so-cial life by illustrating inconsistencies in human behavior, the preva-lence of subjective categories, discrepancies between institutional de-signs and actual outcomes, or the simultaneous nature of change andcontinuity. In the context of the Tehran Bazaar, the above discussionssuggest that our concept of the Bazaar must account for temporal shiftsand scrutinize the view of the Bazaar as a single corporate entity.To account for these issues exposed during research, I have built onscholarship in new economic sociology that views networks as the basicbuilding block of organizations.4 I propose that bazaars should be stud-ied as bounded spaces containing a series of socially embedded net-works that are the mechanism for the exchange of specific commodi-ties, credit and information about market conditions and potentialtransaction partners. Economic relations that are in various degrees em-bedded in religious, familial and ethnic relations capture a dynamicprocess that continually produces and structures the culture of ex-change relations. Consequently, what is termed as the bazaar’s ‘tradi-tionalism’, ‘informality’, and ‘mentality’ is not a product of internalized,essential, and unvarying structures, or a functional response to meeteconomic necessity, but a logic that emerges out of patterns of rela-tions enforcing and molding actions. Moreover, these networks them-selves are subject to transformation as the political economy changes. The process of conducting initial field research forced me to criticallyevaluate the literature and re-conceptualize long held notions of theBazaar. I then turned to secondary sources to address unasked ques-tions and refine existing categories used to analyze Iranian society.Thus, field research was the critical first step in interrogating existingmodes of thought. The Islamic revolution as a ‘natural experiment’Once we begin to study Iran from a more empirically grounded per-spective, we can systematically explore the Islamic Revolution and askwhether it constitutes a social revolution. If the Revolution is treated asan exogenous shock, the Iranian case lends itself to interesting studiesof change and continuity in order to explicitly investigate the conse-quences of the Revolution. The change in regimes acts as a sort of ‘nat-ural experiment’ through which we can access the impact of changes instate institutions on society. By carefully and systematically comparingIranian society before and after the Revolution we can assess the rele-vance of continuities such as Iran’s position in the world economy, orthe continued lack of liberal individual rights and absence of institu-tionalized parties. For example, while the main components of ‘mod-ernization’, such as urbanization, industrialization, and expansion of ed-ucation, all existed since the 1940s, it was only after the Islamic Revolu-tion that a radical transformation of the Bazaar’s networks can be de-tected. Also, comparisons across the revolutionary epoch can be bol-stered by comparisons across cases within Iranian society. A whole hostof creative comparative projects can be devised to study variationsacross cities, regions, ethnicities or economic sectors. Through evaluat-ing the change in regime we can consider the relevance of socioeco-nomic, ideological and political factors in precipitating transformations.It is incumbent upon researchers to spend time in Iran to identify dis-similarities and appropriate comparisons, and field research must play afundamental role in project design as much as in deriving findings.In order to encourage research projects that tackle new issues, devel-op more powerful concepts and uncover new sources, the academiccommunity must encourage early and regular visits to Iran. Unfortu-nately at this time there is little institutional and financial support forexploratory research. I would encourage research institutions to directtheir limited funds to sponsor students in their first few years of study tomake even brief visits to Iran to meet researchers,interview people, peruse archives and review dis-sertations and journals published in Iran in orderto simultaneously diversify their research sourcesand lines of enquiry. Exploratory and preparatoryresearch is a crucial, although often slighted, com-ponent of the preliminary stage of social inquiry, astage that is particularly lacking in much NorthAmerican and European scholarship on Iran. It istime to consciously support and privilege re-search projects that are constructed through, aswell as by, field research; they will go a long way inenriching our understanding of Iran and socialprocesses more generally.I S I M N E W S L E T T E R  1 3 /  D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 3 5 1N o t e s1 . Two noteworthy examples are FaribaAdelkhah, Being Modern in Iran ( t r a n s .Jonathan Derrick), (New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 2000) and Asef Bayat, S t r e e tP o l i t i c s (New York: Columbia UniversityPress, 1997). 2 . Gustav Thaiss, ‘The Bazaar as a Case Study ofReligion and Social Change’, in Iran Facesfrom the Seventies, ed. Yar-Shater (New York:Praeger Publishers, 1971).3 . Inter alia Mehdi Moslem, Factional Politics inPost-Khomeini Iran (Syracuse: SyracuseUniversity Press, 2002) and Hojjat Mortaji,Jenah-haye Siyasi dar Iran-e Emrooz ( T e h r a n :Naqsh va Negar, 1378).4 . Walter W. Powell and Laurel Smith-Doerr,‘Networks and Economic Life’, in T h eHandbook of Economic Sociology, eds. Neil J.Smelser and Richard Swedberg (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1994).Arang Keshavarzian is an Assistant Professor at the Departmentof Political Science at Concordia University, Canada. This essaywas originally presented as part of a panel sponsored byCritique, titled. ‘Contemporary Iranian Society in Light of RecentField Research’ at the Middle East Studies Association AnnualMeeting in Washington D.C., November 2002.E-mail: akeshava@alcor.concordia.ca

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Field Research, Research Design and the Tehran Bazaar

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