The Sovereign and the Sensible

This article investigates the history of the formation of the red-light district of Tehran in 1922, to tackle larger questions about the genealogy of the constitutional Islamic state in Iran in the twentieth century. Through an engagement with the Islamic local campaign against prostitution and the state's subsequent sovereign decision to form the district, this article demonstrates how Islamic public sensibilities moved to the forefront of analytics of governance, under postconstitutional state formations (1911–). This revisionist narrative remaps the force of religion in Tehran, a city that is so often glossed as a case of state-oriented top-down secularization and subsequent Islamization in the twentieth century. The aim is not to question the process of secularization or to render it incomplete, but to demonstrate how secularism in Iran negotiated and consolidated a particular relationship between Islam and sovereign modern rule. As such, this work reads the history of the district against the grain of the grand narrative of the Islamic Revolution's (1979) moment of rupture to trace the genealogical roots of moral governance in the Islamic Republic today, within the postconstitutional state formations in the early twentieth century.

Community-Based Strategies as Transformative Approaches for Health Promotion and Empowerment among Commercial Sex Workers in India

The current paper examines the utilization of community mobilization as a strategic health communication technique in an intervention to reduce human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and sexually transmitted infections (STI) rates among marginalized and at-risk populations such as commercial female sex workers in a red-light district in India. The research documents the struggles of a historically exploited community in India to mitigate its marginalization through implementation of a multilayered strategy of capacity building and economic empowerment. Semi-structured interviews of 37 commercial female sex workers were conducted in a red-light district of India. Qualitative analysis of the interview transcripts showed the prevalence of three themes which demonstrated the different facets of the community mobilization framework within the context of a health communication intervention. The findings of this research delineate how STI risk reduction as well as participation and empowerment can be achieved through a community-based health promotion project targeted towards commercial female sex workers within the context of their lived realities of marginalization and oppression.

Study on the Infancy Characteristics of Meiji Capitalism in Takekurabe under the Semiotic Square Theory

Takekurabe (Child’s Play) is one of the masterpieces of Ichiy? Higuchi, a Japanese female writer, during the Meiji (Note 1) period. Setting in the context of Yoshiwara, a famous red-light district in Edo (Note 2)period, the novella depicts the absurd and wild growth experience of a group of youths who were deeply influenced by the feudal dross culture. From the perspective of structuralism, this paper leverages Greimas’s semiotic square theory to explore the meaning structure beneath the ostensible narratives of the work. It is found that the contradictions and entanglement among teenagers are closely connected with Yoshiwara’s social culture and mainstream values. It can be said that Yoshiwara in the Meiji period portrayed by Ichiy? is a residual epitome of Edo feudal culture.

Peremajaan Berbasis Masyarakat pada Kawasan Eks Lokalisasi Putat Jaya Surabaya

The urban renewal approach is generally carried out with both physical and economic appoach. A community-based development/urban renewal approach is used for long-term results, therefore it is rarely done. Community based urban renewal study is very important because the impact is more sustainable. Urban renewal of red-light district Putat Jaya Surabaya is carried out to resolve the pressure and social economic change, which is the closing of Dolly and Jarak (Putat Jaya). The Government of Surabaya has been using a community based approach in conducting the renewal, but in doing so the Government of Surabaya has no reference, especially the know-how mechanism of a community based development. This study aims to evaluate and formulate a community-based urban renewal mechanism, so that it can be a reference in the implementation of urban renewal. The results showed that the efforts made by the Surabaya of Government had not fully met the principles of community-based urban renewal where the community had a central role in the preparation and implementation of plans and monitoring of the results of urban renewal in a participatory manner.