The use of material objects to construct and adorn one’s domestic space reveals much more than taste. The ways in which female immigrants of Iranian origin in Toronto use their possessions to fashion their domestic realms represents a valuable point of entry into the study of the intertwine operations of culture and memory. Indeed, the interior of the home is the primary arena for cultural performance, whether continuing, reconstituted or emerging. While the domestic space of the home provides an area for the demonstration of values and identity, each person negotiates this fact in a different and unique ‘material’ language.
It is clear in the case of female Iranian emigrants in Toronto that material objects are centrally important in the processes of resettlement. This study of the role of objects in immigrant experience turns on the close reading and analysis of first hand accounts. Twelve female Iranian immigrants, from the second wave of Iranian immigrants were interviewed for this study. Ranging in ages from 25 to 71 and having arrived in Canada between 1979 and 2013 under differing circumstances and from different urban centers in Iran, these women provide important points of access to critical information about cultural transposition, identity performance and the mnemonic and semiotic functioning of possessions. And while definitions of what constitutes Iranian national identity in the context of the diaspora experience is complex and varies amongst generations (whether in Toronto or otherwise), it is clear that the distinct testimonies of these women share the common theme of emigrant experience, namely the desire to reconstruct lives in new places through the careful negotiation of carried knowledge of the old.