The archaeology of a marginal neighborhood in Tehran, Iran: garbage, class, and identity

Tehran's Archaeology of Garbage project was conducted in 2017-2018 and with the initial aim of monitoring the impacts of currency devaluation on poor people. In Districts 7 and 17, the team investigated two of the most decayed urban fabrics of Tehran as well as the garbage bags of 1004 poor marginalized families. Among these, we managed to find evidence of a forgotten social group, the 'impoverished middle class' which consisted of people from the middle-class background who had to move to a neighborhood occupied by low-income classes. The garbage-making behaviors of these two communities were tracked and led to a better understanding of demographic changes and recent protests. In this article, I will present the evidence of poverty in District 17 and will open a new debate on the poor middle-class emerging community and its influence on the new identity of the people living in District 17.