Our Bakhtiari Shelter: Weaving Sustainable Futures Through Craft, Story, and Kinship
University of Glasgow + McMaster University
Biography
Zahra Tootonsab is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University (Canada). Her research explores how decolonial sheltering and living can address the global climate crisis, drawing on the weaving, oral, and artistic traditions of Indigenous peoples in so-called Canada and Iran. Zahra’s ethics and poetics of shelter are inspired by the lifeways of Iran’s Bakhtiari people.
Introduction
The project was conducted at the University of Glasgow (UofG), under the supervision of Dr. Daniel Calderbank. It involved the scientific analysis of textile artefacts, such as the salt bag, from a Bakhtiari nomad family (Indigenous to southwest Iran), to explore how their cultural and craft practices adapt to intertwined environmental and political challenges, including drought and vegetation decline, and generate sustainable forms of shelter.
Central to the project is “Our Bakhtiari Shelter,” a long-term Instagram community page designed to preserve and showcase Bakhtiari culture in motion – a form of digital sheltering. It connects Bakhtiari kin across space and time, while also inviting broader audiences to learn and share what it means to shelter and move with kin. Through the page, Zahra curates stories, crafts, and aspirations rooted in Bakhtiari knowledge, offering a platform for creative, inclusive, and participatory knowledge co-production.
A key component of the project was the workshop “Weaving Shelter: Moving with Kin,” held on June 4, 2025, at UofG. Through a collaborative zine-making process, participants responded to prompts like “What does sheltering mean to you?” and “Who do you move with?” Each page became part of a zine shaped by multiple hands and voices. The result was a series of intimate, co-created ‘woven shelters,’ symbolizing the collective spirit of the project. Ultimately, “Our Bakhtiari Shelter” offers a space for shared reflection and creative resistance, where shelter is reimagined not just as a place of protection, but as a homemaking practice grounded in co-creation, movement, and mutual care.
Research
This showcase presents the outcomes of my EARTH Scholarship research project at the University of Glasgow (UofG), carried out under the supervision of Dr. Daniel Calderbank. During my time at UofG, I worked closely with my friend and textile archaeologist Maria Elena Bertoli, learning about weaving practices and examining three woven items I had brought back from Chaharmahal-e Bakhtiari Province, Iran.
The objective of my analysis was to learn how Bakhtiari cultural and craft practices function as tools for ecological adaptation and cultural continuity. At its core, my project asks: How do Bakhtiari ways of making and moving through weaving, migration, and kinship networks respond to environmental pressures such as drought, vegetation decline, and political displacement? By focusing on woven objects and their biographies (the everyday knowledge embedded within them), I examined how Bakhtiari techniques function both as tools for survival and as ethical practices of care, land stewardship, and sustainability.
The showcase brings together three main components:
- A microscopic textile analysis of Bakhtiari woven objects.
- A community-centred Instagram platform called “Our Bakhtiari Shelter.”
- A collaborative zine-making workshop exploring sheltering as a collective and evolving practice.
Microscopic Study of a Salt Bag (Namakdan)
We conducted a microscopic analysis of three woven artefacts given to me by a Bakhtiari nomad family: a salt bag (namakdan), a bread carpet, and a rug. The analysis offers insights into the ecological knowledge and sustainable craft practices of the Bakhtiari people.
The namakdan, for example, is used to store salt harvested from natural brines in the Zagros Mountains. Through microscopic analysis, we found that the warp and weft threads were Z-spun and S-plied, a configuration that enhances strength and prevents unravelling. We also observed the thread density: 9 threads per cm in the warp and 12 per cm in the weft. The looser warp allows the fabric to remain flexible and expand or fold as needed. The denser weft provides the structural integrity necessary to contain fine-grained materials like salt.
This kind of strategic design reflects both ecological adaptability and cultural knowledge. The namakdan was developed in response to climatic variability. The Zagros Mountains create an arid environment. Higher risks of drought and changing river flows impact the formation of salt brines and can make them unpredictable over time. As a result, the namakdan is a durable and portable salt storage solution. It allows Bakhtiari nomads to stockpile salt when it is accessible and transport it during seasonal migrations.
In this way, the namakdan is a deliberate technical choice. It is a woven response to an unpredictable environment and a sustainable material practice shaped by experience, mobility, and care.
Goat Hair as Ecological Technology
Goat hair is an important material in Bakhtiari weaving. It is not only abundant and biodegradable, but also naturally flame- and water-resistant, thanks to oils in the fibres. These properties make it ideal for weaving items like the namakdan, which must endure harsh environmental conditions.
The porosity of goat hair also creates a thermal buffer, helping to preserve the salt inside by protecting it from moisture. Since salt is hygroscopic, this insulation is essential for long-term storage during seasonal migration.
Goats are central to Bakhtiari life. They provide wool for shelter, clothing, and mobility, as well as food such as milk, cheese, meat, and yogurt. Goat motifs appear in Bakhtiari weavings, symbolizing the sacred bond between goats and the Bakhtiari people, their landscapes, and their livelihoods.
Weaving as Cultural and Environmental Cartography
For Bakhtiari women, weaving is a form of embodied cartography; it is a practice of mapping through material and memory. The zigzags, horizontal lines, and geometric shapes in their weavings reflect migration routes, river paths, and seasonal rhythms.
The salt bag itself is a material embodiment of Bakhtiari communal resistance and adaptation. During microscopic analysis, we observed that the namakdan was not dyed with natural pigments. This may be due to vegetation decline and the disappearance (or even extinction) of specific plants once used for dyes and medicine.
For example, madder (Rubia tinctorum) and jasheer (Prangos) were commonly used by Bakhtiari women to dye wool in orange-red, ochre yellow, and brown tones (Maleknia 144). However, as these plants have declined in the Zagros Mountains, women now purchase most of their dyes from local bazaars (Maleknia 144). Despite these changes, Bakhtiari women continue to adapt and renew their craft practices as globalization, imperial/state control, and climate change reshape their movements and relational ways of life.
“Our Bakhtiari Shelter”
One of the main outcomes of my research was the creation of a digital shelter: @bakhtiarishelter
This is a long-term, community-driven Instagram page designed to preserve and co-create Bakhtiari sheltering practices. With mentorship from Dr. Calderbank and digital archaeologist Dr. Gareth Beale, the page was developed as a space for:
- Archiving cultural practices.
- Engaging with Bakhtiari kin across Iran and the diaspora.
- Collaboratively building sheltering knowledge through storytelling and craft.
The page documents woven crafts, daily practices, and movements that enable Bakhtiari people to adapt with tradition inside and outside of our homelands. The page also invites contributions from Bakhtiari people and others around the world who are interested in exploring what it means to shelter or ‘move with kin.’
[Alt text: Clip of Kubra making bread inside a Bakhtiari black tent, called the “siah chador.” The reel highlights the environmental benefits of the back tent, explains why it is being replaced by canopy tents, and ends with reflective questions about sheltering practices.]
“Weaving Shelter: Moving with Kin” — A Collaborative Zine Workshop
On June 4, 2025, I led a zine-making workshop at UofG titled “Weaving Shelter: Moving with Kin.” Participants were invited to reflect on questions such as:
- What does sheltering mean to you?
- Who do you move with?
- What might sheltering for future kin look like?
Each participant responded to one prompt on a single page, then passed their zine to the next person. By the end, everyone held a collaborative ‘woven shelter’: a zine shaped by collective reflection and shared effort.
This process mirrors what I hope “Our Bakhtiari Shelter” can become: a gathering place where stories are exchanged, new ideas are woven, and shelter is reimagined together.
What’s Next?
As part of the next phase, I will create a Linktree page and add the submission link to the Instagram bio to invite artists, writers, scholars, craftspeople, and learners to co-create alternative ways of imagining shelter – from Bakhtiari traditions to transnational and intercultural modes of sustainable homemaking.
The creation of “Our Bakhtiari Shelter” and the artistic and research contributions it inspires will form part of the final chapter of my dissertation project on Indigenous shelter-making practices from so-called Canada to Iran.
Work Cited
Maleknia, Saman. Bringing Persian Flat Woven Art to Market: Material Culture Study of Bakhtiari Nomad of Iran. 2013. McGill University, PhD dissertation.
Contact Zahra
Email: tootonsz@mcmaster.ca
