Life in the fourth quarter; Study of lifestyle in deprived neighborhoods of the Kermanshah city

Abstract

Centralized, unbalanced, and unequal development in the last century has posed serious challenges to Iran's social setup, including ever-increasing deprivation in some metropolitan areas. The city of Kermanshah, apart from these processes, has experienced double deprivation, due to other factors such as an imposed war as well as its special geographical, social and cultural characteristics. This deprivation is the main theme of this study, with emphasis on everyday life among deprived and privileged areas of Kermanshah. We have surveyed and analyzed indices of the economic capital, cultural capital, leisure time activities, body management, and preferences (in literature, cinema, music, food, and economics domains), in 13 deprived and 2 privileged neighborhoods, with 800 samples. Findings indicate that deprived neighborhoods generally follow a relatively similar pattern in different economic, cultural, leisure, tastes and body management arenas, despite minor differences, the main feature of which is poverty and deprivation. In most indicators, there found to be a significant difference between deprived and privileged areas. Also, there had been a positive correlation between the economic situation and the variables of "cultural capital", "body management", "artistic and literary preferences" and "economic logic". Demographic variables such as age, education and job were also important in changing the amount of capitals.

Keywords

• cultural capital
• deprived neighborhoods
• leisure time
• lifestyle
• taste preferences