“I Painted It This Way Because I Belong Nowhere”: Using Body Mapping to Explore Gender, Subjectivity, and Resilience among Afghan Immigrant Women in Iran

This qualitative study explores how second-generation Afghan women born and raised in Iran create belonging and identity despite gender, legal, and cultural barriers. Although they represent a large part of the Afghan community in Iran, their daily embodied experiences are rarely discussed in migration or gender studies. Using body mapping and semi-structured interviews conducted with four women aged 18–40, this study examines how displacement and everyday exclusion shape their feelings, identities, and coping mechanisms. The visual and narrative data show how inequalities in education, family life, and social position are felt and carried within the body. At the same time, acts of care and creative work appear as quiet forms of autonomy and resilience. Methodologically, this study shows how body mapping can reveal the emotional, sensory, and symbolic aspects of refugee women’s lives that are often missed in conventional interviews. It positions the body as both an archive and a site of meaning-making, offering a feminist lens to understand how trauma, identity, and social constraint are connected. Beyond its local context, this paper highlights how the methodology of participatory art can contribute to ethical and inclusive research, informing policy and advocacy for women living under displacement and gendered inequality.