My doctoral research has been generously funded by the International Center for Research on Women, Barbara Yates Fellowship, Evelyne Accad and Paul Vieille International Research Award, Andrew M. Isserman Memorial Fellowship, among others.

I am grateful for the dissertation writing support provided by the Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program and the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Crafting Collective Community-Based Economies By/For the Marginalized: The Case of Baluch Women Needleworkers in Peri-Urban Iran

Dissertation Committee: Faranak Miraftab (Chair), Marc Doussard, Magdalena Novoa, Caroline Shenaz Hossein (University of Toronto)

Using qualitative mixed methods case study along with elements of participatory action research, my dissertation examines the relationship between community-based development and diverse solidarity-based economic practices under conditions of displacement, gender, ethnic and religious discrimination amidst a global crisis-ridden economy aggravated by the recent pandemic and climate change. Specifically, I study ethnic and religious minority Sunni-Baluch women engaged in solidarity finance using their needleworking skills in order to create an inclusive financial terrain, provide job opportunities, negotiate with the state to claim resources, and engage in collective practices of care and commoning that go beyond the individual and household levels in informal settlements of Iran. My research presents an approach with the potential to fundamentally transform the field of social economy from a charity-based and capital centric model to one of community economies and solidarity model which leads to sustainable community-based development. By recognizing and elevating the overlooked ad undervalued roles of low-income Muslim women and their solidarity economy networks as instruments for poverty relief and community-based development, we have the potential of transforming the way resources are normally allocated in Global South communities. The Findings of this research will provide important insights for scholars, policy makers, community organizers and NGOs who are embracing an array of practices, techniques and ideas that broaden and reframe our understanding of what constitute as economy. This expanded understanding of economy encompasses much more than the control of production while marking the ethical coordinates of an economy that cares for us.

My fieldwork was made possible via funding from Ryerson Traveling Fellowship ($7,600) awarded in 2016.

A critique of a failed international sustainable development project in indigenous community of Lumbisi, Ecuador

Advisor: Professor Dede Ruggles, Department of Landscape Architecture at UIUC

sustainable development is saturated with complexities that stem from the ambiguity of the word “sustainability” and the encumbrance of the word “development.” Hence, in this paper, I examine the meaning of these notions so as to come up with more comprehensive and innovative approaches and to alleviate the pressure of underdevelopment that the idea of development connotes. Second, I explore international sustainable development, drawing upon the main concepts of the book The Development Dictionary: Knowledge as Power (2010) in the form of a post-assessment report of an interdisciplinary fieldwork in an indigenous community in Lumbisi, Ecuador for the design of an irrigation system. In May 2016, I accompanied the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign chapter of Engineers Without Borders as the only landscape architect to Lumbisi as a researcher using a socio-spatial approach in an interdisciplinary endeavor to achieve a community-based design. However, the project encountered many obstacles that resulted in the project’s halt. What follows is a deliberation over why the sustainable irrigation design did not come to pass.

Key words: Development, Sustainability, Community-based, Ecuador, Fieldwork

Article: The Joy of Many Stories: Zine-making and Story-mapping in Planning Pedagogy

Atyeh Ashtari, Efadul Huq, and Faranak Miraftab (2022)

In this article, we reflect on our experiences of teaching urban planning courses that through storytelling center on issues of globalization, urbanization, planning, and social and spatial inequalities. We contemplate using zine-making and multimedia story-mapping to overcome impediments instructors usually face in engaging diverse students in appreciating the complexities of social justice on global and local scales. In light of critical feminist pedagogies and critical race theory and based on re-reading students’ multimedia products and follow-up conversations, we discuss the pedagogical strengths, limitations and opportunities of zine-making and story-mapping approaches to collaborate with students in imagining more humane urban futures.

We are grateful to our funders: the Illinois International Program & the Humanities Without Walls consortium, funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and based at the Illinois Program for Research in Humanities (IPRH) at UIUC.

Book: Constructing Solidarities for a Humane Urbanism

Miraftab, F., Salo, K. E., Huq, E., Ashtari, A., Aristizabal U. (Eds.) (2019)

Synopsis: “Traversing the financial industry’s takeover of shelter and basic services in Chicago and Cape Town, and the movements fighting eviction, displacement and gross urban inequalities in South Africa and the US, the authors of Constructing Solidarities for a Humane Urbanism reveal transnational connections between these conflicts and movements. Even more, they document how activists in those conflicts draw inspiration from and collaborate with one another to achieve their goals and refine strategies for future battles. Based on an event that brought together academics and activists, the approaches described by the authors create alliances across nations and across the interwoven fabrics of racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual identities, as well as between formal and informal political practices. Responding to an urgent need for collaborative reflection and exchange among scholars and activists with experience in transnational social and solidarity movements, Constructing Solidarities is both a record of conversations advancing our understanding of humane urbanisms and a roadmap for those seeking to participate in a global movement for more just approaches to urban development.”