Second Home Studies in Iran: A Systematic Review of the Structural and Content Status of Scientific-research Articles and Future Directions

1. Introduction
More than two decades have passed since the publication of scientific documents in the second home field in Iran. Despite the ever-increasing volume of research and the literature dispersion related to second homes, so far, there has not been a review that can analyze the current trend of studies and the main research directions in the structural and content aspects and reveal hidden angles in this field. For this purpose, this article aims to provide a systematic review of second-home studies in Iran, and seeks to answer these questions: What is the structural framework of the research conducted in the second-home field in Iran? And what are the characteristics of internal studies published in the field of second homes in terms of content specifications compared to international articles?
2. Methodology
This research is fundamental in terms of purpose and mixed in terms of approach. With a systematic review, 87 scientific-research articles were identified for study. The content of articles was categorized in the framework of structural and content specifications with the content analysis method. Also, 154 international articles were analyzed with the word co-occurrences technique based on the content characteristics.
3. Results
The results showed that most of the authors' expertise is in the field of “geography and rural planning”, and other specialties are less involved in this topic. Thematic axes of the studies are classified in the form of 2 main categories, 6 sub-categories and 23 codes, which indicate more attention to the description of the reproduced space at the objectivity level, dominance of the consequence-oriented attitude and less attention to the causal-explanatory level. Most researchers evaluated the second home phenomenon with applied orientation and quantitative approach, which shows positivism dominance in the internal literature. International articles, similar to internal studies, emphasize the dominance of the result-oriented approach and, unlike internal studies, focus more on the qualitative approach and subjective perception of stakeholders.
4. Discussion
Similar to global knowledge, second home studies in Iran have paid much attention to environmental, social, and economic aspects, but other issues such as motivations, planning, and unexpected events, which are among the most frequent topics in second home studies in the world (Alonsopérez et al. 2022), were less studied in Iran. Contrary to the suggestion of Alonsopérez et al. (2022) about analyzing the consequences of the second home in future studies, due to the history of consequence-oriented attitudes in Iran, it is time to examine this phenomenon from other angles. Most internal studies have evaluated second homes at the rural scale and often neglected them in cities and suburbs. This is consistent with Müller's study (2021) in Nordic countries. Second home studies in Iran are mostly focused on Mazandaran and Tehran, which is in line with the findings of Bayat et al. (2013).
5. Conclusion
The results showed that studies were focused on two broad thematic axes: the first point of view emphasizes the question of “what” and the description of the reproduced space, and the second point of view emphasizes the question of “why” and the explanation of the causal forces affecting second homes expansion. In internal documents, the focus was mainly on the dominant outputs of the space at the objective level with the consequence-oriented approach. Less effort was made to explain the causative contexts by considering all related human factors. So, paying attention to the agency-oriented approach and explaining actors' motivations in terms of supply and demand is a requirement in future studies. Also, a multi-level view of the second home phenomenon is recommended to connect objective and causal levels. Moreover, future research should pay more attention to explaining how to get out of the current situation towards desirability, after gaining knowledge of the objective and causal forces.
Unlike the world literature, in terms of methodology, focus on the quantitative approach and sometimes the imitation of a similar methodological structure in internal studies caused the dominance of statistical and absolute views. Future research requires moving away from an absolute positivist attitude and more towards a qualitative and mixed approach to achieve a comprehensive understanding of this phenomenon.
Acknowledgment
This paper is extracted from the doctoral dissertation of Maryam Ghorbanpour at Iran University of Science and Technology entitled "Explanation of the mechanisms of second home expansion (case study: west of Gilan province)" under the guidance of Dr. Reza Kheyroddin and Dr. Seyed Abdolhadi Daneshpour. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Conflict of Interest
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.