Different Cultural Understandings of Honor That Inspire Killing

Abstract

Though there is substantial literature on different cultural understandings of honor and shame that inspire violence, little has been written from the point of view of the defendants who have committed and have been found guilty of murder committed in the name of honor. To gain a better understanding of the different cultural perspectives of honor and shame that inspire honor killing, it is necessary to interrogate the accounts of these defendants and their understanding of actions as honorable and dishonorable. This article attempts to make a start in supplying this missing focus and argues that the concept of honor, here, is different from other honor-related homicides that other commentators and the relevant literature reflect.

Honour, Violence and Heteronormativity

“…In HBV, honour is not constructed as an individual asset to be bought, sold or exchanged: it is collective and gains meaning only in its social circulation and punishment (Roberts, Campbell and Lloyd 2014). The cultural model of HBV rests on the belief that, whilst a universal human characteristic, when presenting as a collective control, honour is a normative framework unique to some 'honour cultures' (Dogan 2014;Vandello and Cohen 2004;Vandello et al 2009). These 'honour cultures' extend across the globe including Mediterranean and South American 'machismo' cultures, southern frontier cultures of the USA and religious cultures worldwide (Baker et al 1999).…”

“…Throughout the literature on HBV, researchers lament the lack of a shared language of HBV and reliable victimisation and offending data, particularly of the sub-lethal varieties of HBV. Large scale, transnational attitude and perception studies have been undertaken on honour and shame (see Rodriguez Mosquera's (2013) special edition of Group Processes and Intergroup Relations for a detailed discussion of these), which is increasingly used to contextualise the results from smaller qualitative studies of HBV victimisation (such as Payton's (2014) study of intimate partner violence and HBV case files opened with a UK advocacy organisation for women, IKWRO) and forensic studies of offenders' motivational drives (Dogan 2014). Yet the central term, honour, continues to be contested and operationalised in research in various ways, including as individual and community pathology, universal set of norms or values guiding men's violence against women, and culturally-specific honour codes.…”

“…Yet the central term, honour, continues to be contested and operationalised in research in various ways, including as individual and community pathology, universal set of norms or values guiding men's violence against women, and culturally-specific honour codes. Most commonly, though, HBV is understood as a cultural artefact of some cultural expressions of men's violence or as the artefact of a pathologised offender's adherence to a culturally-specific and violent code of honour (Dogan 2014). …”

“…3 This increased Western scrutiny of HBV, particularly in the UK, has led to a growing body of knowledge about the antecedents and characteristics of this type of interpersonal Contrary to popular representations, these examples of collective violence point to factors that exceed the normative values of Islam and of religious or cultural honour codes more generally. The continuing use of cultural models to explain honour based violence (for example, Dogan 2014), and the increased surveillance of this violence in Muslim communities have combined to create a public perception that HBV is a matter of deviant and antiquated Muslim belief systems. 4 Explanatory frameworks that seek motivational factors in HBV primarily through a cultural lens are dangerous in an era when Muslim women's experiences have been so thoroughly politicised and demonised, and linked with those of annihilationist versions of Islam.…”

Honor Killing of Women: A comparative study of the Pakistani Print Media

“…There are many recent studies stated that honor killing is supported by custom and it could be seen North Africa, Middle East including Turkey and Pakistan [6] [7]. The honor murder is also known as Karo-Kari.…”