Saudi Women and the Expression of Identity in the Domestic Living Space

Abstract

This paper entails a non-western analysis of the contemporary home environment. The main focus of this study is the role of women in family living room design, particularly in the context of Jeddah city, Saudi Arabia. The purpose of this study was to determine how the interior design of domestic space offers opportunities for women to present their identity. Saudi women using their living space within the home can play a role in expressing the identity of those women through the experience of designing this space and the interaction with its objects. The methodological framework has been structured into an ethnographical approach, which involved in-depth interviews with middle class housewives in their living rooms, aimed to seek information about experiences, interaction and values in the home environment, and enables identity presentation in the family living room. In addition, associated methods, such as photographic and video records, coding the living space features and visual observation of the living room were used to enrich data collection and unpack the environmental meaning. These mixed methods helped to understand the reality of women’s life experiences and provide a compelling portrait of women’s roles and identity within their living space. This paper explains the expression of individual (women) identity and the expression of group (family) identity within the living rooms. The living room in Jeddah homes is the centre space of symbolic interaction, where I meets them, where women show how well they have presented themselves and the values of their families in the living room context.