'Honour' Killing and Violence

Theory, Policy and Practice

Kenneth A. Loparo, C. Strange, K. Roberts, Aisha K. Gill, C. Strange, K. Roberts

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137289568
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Personality in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

In this interdisciplinary collection leading experts and scholars from criminology, psychology, law and history provide a compelling analysis of practices and beliefs that lead to violence against women, men and children in the name 'honour'.

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Introduction: ‘Honour’ and ‘Honour’-Based Violence: Challenging Common Assumptions

Aisha K. Gill

In recent years, violence against women (VAW) committed in the name of ‘honour’ has attracted increasing attention across the globe. Unfortunately, media accounts and policy discourses concerning honour-based violence (HBV) and so-called honour killings have principally viewed the problem through the lens of cultural essentialism. This volume argues that the problem should instead be approached from a multidisciplinary perspective, attentive to the intersection of a range of causal factors and inclusive of a wide range of both proven and promising interventions.

The academics and practitioners in this collection seek to identify and interrogate the institutions, structures and ideologies that underpin HBV as a form of VAW while avoiding the trap of simplistically viewing culture, ethnicity, religion or nationality as the sole causal factor behind this complex phenomenon. Drawing on expertise from a wide range of disciplines, including criminology, sociology, anthropology, law, history and political science, the contributors share the same goal: to advance current understandings of the motivating factors behind HBV and the impediments to effective responses, as regards not just legal and political measures but also economic and social ones. In introducing the volume, this chapter explores established understandings of HBV and measures aimed at addressing it, concluding with a brief overview of each chapter.

Gender, ‘honour’ and ‘honour’-based violence

Honour is most often defined as a virtue or character trait associated with integrity, good moral character and altruism (Vandello and Cohen, 2004). It is a symbolic and rhetorical construct, the meaning of which is constantly contested as it carries different connotations in different cultural and linguistic groups (Sen, 2005; Welchman and Hossain, 2005). However, subtleties of meaning are often lost in the attempt to understand these differences; the translation of terms that encompass honour rarely convey the totality of their culturally specific interpretations, distorting their meaning (Terman, 2010). For instance, the Urdu word izzat, often translated into English simply as ‘honour’, refers to a wide spectrum of socio-cultural relationships and ties that bind family and community groups together (Gill and Brah, 2014).

Despite these definitional issues, honour is generally considered to comprise three facets: ‘a sentiment, a manifestation of this sentiment in conduct, and the evaluation of this conduct in others’ (Pitt-Rivers, 1971, p. 21). In other words, it encompasses not only a person’s estimation of their own worth, but also the acknowledgement of that claim by their community through the recognition of their right to respect. Thus, honour often has multiple connotations and overlapping meanings related to pride, esteem, dignity, reputation and virtue.

In defining honour, many theorists emphasise the power of the parallel concept of ‘shame’. Wikan (2008) contends that individuals in communities that value honour are not only motivated by a desire to obtain and maintain honour but equally concerned with avoiding shame. Honour and shame are dynamically interrelated in that honour ‘has to be continually reaffirmed in practice, reinforced in action, defended against challenge and re-won and advanced in competition’ (Mandelbaum, 1988, p. 23). Thus, honour relates to the behaviour expected of members of a particular community, while shame is associated with transgressions against these expectations.

The specific acts deemed to increase honour or erode it, causing shame, are subject to constant contestation and change. Moreover, honour and shame have distinct practical implications for men and women. Men are expected to uphold their family and social group’s honour by ensuring that ‘their’ women do not bring shame upon the family. Although their own conduct is subject to moral judgement, it is often considered secondary to the scrutiny focused on female relatives. Thus, in societies with honour-based value systems, honour is typically equated with the regulation of women’s sexuality and their conformity with social norms and traditions.

The oppression that women face as a result of honour systems takes different forms depending on their location, their regional culture and their family’s socio-economic status (Dobash and Dobash, 2000). For example, in some South Asian families, women’s participation in professional and/or academic pursuits contributes to the family’s honour; in others, a sister or daughter who works outside the home is a source of shame. As such, gender-role expectations vary widely, ranging from the extremely patriarchal to the comparatively egalitarian (Welchman and Hossain, 2005).

Despite these variations, the vast majority of victims of HBV are women (typically girls and young women), while perpetrators are most often the victim’s male blood relatives or in-laws: the victim’s father, brother(s), cousins and/or uncle(s). While older women, especially mothers and mothers-in-law, may play a part in the perpetration of HBV, it is usually men who carry out the violence. As a result, the perpetration of HBV, including so-called honour killings, can be considered a public display of patriarchal power. As Bourdieu (1977) claims, honour is always lived out openly, before other people. In countries where ‘honour’ killings occur regularly, perpetrators who are arrested often proudly display their handcuffs as many believe that killing for the sake of individual or collective honour is heroic. In other instances, men claim that their actions were impulsive, prompted by rage over the victim’s supposed violation of the prevailing honour code. Both types of response locate the propensity for violence not in men per se but rather in culturally constituted ways of ‘being a man’ that link masculinity with authorised acts of aggression (Hearn, 2004). Such behaviour is seen as virtuous, rather than unmanly, since it affirms a man’s capacity to exert control over his female relatives (Ertürk, 2012).

Thus, although the word ‘honour’ has many positive connotations, it is often invoked to justify violence, abuse and even murder. As this volume discusses, its role in motivating and legitimising VAW needs to be better understood if such crimes are to be effectively challenged. Critically, as several contributors note, breach of honour does not universally entail violence by men against women (see Strange, Chapter 3), nor are women its exclusive victims (see Roberts, Chapter 4). However, the overwhelming majority of cases involve violence perpetrated by men against women in order to obtain and/or maintain a social construction of ‘honour’ (Bownman, 2007; Vandello and Cohen, 2004). HBV is most commonly committed in communities where concern to protect families against dishonour caused by violations of the prevailing honour code outweighs concern regarding the value of women’s lives and their autonomy.

Considered as a contemporary problem, HBV should be defined primarily as a form of VAW. As Welchman and Hossain (2005) observe, the use of the term ‘honour crime’ is vexed. First, the application of this and similar terms to forms of violence that almost exclusively afflict women lends support to the idea that ‘honour’ is intricately tied to women’s behaviour. Second, the use of the word ‘honour’ renders crimes so described susceptible to ‘exocitisation’ (Welchman and Hossain, 2005, p. 4). Understandings of HBV that prioritise cultural explanations, especially those that consider HBV to be something that happens to ‘othered’ women from ‘othered’ communities, divert attention from the role of gender and the fact that VAW affects women across the cultural and ethnic spectrum. Thus, Narayan (1997) has argued that while academics and policy-makers need to be responsive to the diversity of women’s lives both within and across national contexts, they should also be wary of painting a picture of cultural differences that reinforce cultural essentialism. Conceptualising HBV as a specific type of VAW legitimised by patriarchal honour codes, as we do in this volume, avoids these pitfalls while also recognising the critical role of gender.

While there is a tendency in the West to see so-called ‘honour’ killings as related to specific cultural traditions (Piper, 2005), neither these crimes nor other forms of HBV are confined to a particular religion, culture, type of society or social stratum (Mojab and Abdo, 2004; Ortner, 1978). Bourdieu (1977) argues that honour is not an aspect of cultural practice but rather it emerges from a constellation of interpersonal exchanges; thus, even though honour crimes are found in many different societies, each unique cultural context should be individually evaluated to determine how and why these practices have arisen. As Pope (2004) stresses, the forms that honour crimes take evolve over time and change from country to country, as well as village to village.

Nevertheless, both the mainstream media and many individual politicians and professionals continue to attribute HBV to particular geographical regions, cultures, faiths and/or societies. Some feminists have argued that all fundamentalist religious movements symbolically use the control of women’s bodies to assert a broad agenda of authoritarian political and cultural control (Werbner, 2007; Yuval-Davis, 2009). However, such broad-stroke critiques fail to account for divisions within sects and communities, let alone differences between individuals (see Roberts, Chapter 4; Bredal, Chapter 7; Olwan, Chapter 11). Understanding why HBV occurs requires looking beyond cultural stereotypes and, instead, examining the meanings ascribed to the term ‘honour’ in different communities.

In cultures predicated on the notion of honour, concern with obtaining/maintaining honour and avoiding shame provides a central organising and guiding principle for individuals’ actions and identities (Ahmed, 2003), binding social groups together through an honour ‘code’ (Anthias, 2001; Nisbett and Cohen, 1996; Wikan, 2008). Honour codes apply to both men and women, but place different obligations upon the sexes. Men are encouraged to be generous, hospitable and responsive to threats to their honour, displaying strength, power and toughness in the face of potential shame. Perhaps not surprisingly, violence in the face of dishonour is encouraged and even expected; as such, relative to other cultures, high levels of male violence are found in honour-based communities (Ewing, 2008; Wikan, 2008).

As honour is bestowed in social contexts, it is ephemeral and can be withdrawn by the community at will (Gill, 2009; Stewart, 1994). Losing honour invites ridicule and disgrace, and subjects the individual and their family to shame. Shame, meanwhile, functions as a normative discourse, exerting influence through delineating the normal and the abnormal, separating that which is commonly considered bad (i.e. that which is shameful) from that which is considered good (i.e. that which is honourable) (Vishwanath, 1997). These normative distinctions have a strong gender dimension, as what is judged to be acceptable and unacceptable, honourable or shameful, is different for men and women.

While a wide range of acts is considered shameful, chief among these are perceived violations against female chastity and faithfulness, even if these violations occur as a result of rape or sexual assault. The sexual virtue of a woman is strongly associated with her family’s symbolic capital within the community (Bourdieu, 1977). Thus, to protect this capital, a woman perceived to have offended against prevailing notions of honour must be punished. In such cases, murder may be seen as a legitimate means for protecting honour. In this context, male aggressors often come to be seen as victims of their circumstances, while women who have been subjected to violence are represented as having brought abuse or death upon themselves (Ewing, 2008; Husseini, 2011). Accordingly, the families of many victims do not publicly express regret or grief; instead they condemn the victim for betraying the family.

Men may be dishonoured not only by insults, threats and challenges to their honour, but also by the behaviour of female relatives. Indeed a man’s ability to protect and control ‘his’ circle of women is seen as a proxy for the extent to which he is able to protect his honour in other spheres (Ewing, 2008). Meanwhile, women are expected to maintain their own as well as their family’s honour by behaving appropriately through deference, fidelity, modesty and chastity. As the monitoring of such behaviours comes within the responsibilities of women who hold a senior position in the family, mothers and mothers-in-law may play a significant role in the stigmatisation of girls and women who fail to comply with the rigid gender conventions of the prevailing honour code. Thus, the murder of women in the name of honour is predicated on a system of socio-cultural gender norms designed to reinforce patriarchal values (Ertürk, 2012).

Honour killings commonly result from accusations of female promiscuity. Understanding this requires consideration of the structural opposition between romantic love and marriage in societies whose value systems depend on notions of honour (Anitha and Gill, 2011). In such cultures, romance is seen as having no place in marriage. Rather, the purpose of marriage is to uphold social structures and alliances between families and clans. Since romance is the structural antithesis of this concept of marriage, it is viewed as a form of personal gratification that contravenes moral norms. The pursuit of romance triggers condemnation, ostracism and even violence, often from the entire family, including female members (Anitha and Gill, 2011; Stewart, 1994). For this reason, many cases of suspected ‘honour’ killing remain unsolved due to the unwillingness of members of the victim’s family and community to testify.

Although women have few autonomous rights or basic freedoms within such societies, they maintain some, albeit limited, power: they have the ability either to ‘stain’ their family’s reputation through shameful actions, or to elevate it through marriage to a man of higher social status. Moreover, women also have a stake in maintaining the social order, even in patriarchal systems, especially when it comes to procuring social status through upholding their family’s honour (Rew, Gangoli and Gill, 2013; Sen, 2005). Given the subordinate position of women in cultures with honour-based value systems, it is important to consider both why some women use their limited power to facilitate HBV and whether this represents a form of empowerment.

Sen (2005) argues that the role of women in instigating or colluding with honour crimes cannot be ignored, particularly with regard to enforcing control over relatives’ choices regarding marriage. By exerting power over younger female relatives, women play a critical role in ensuring compliance with the family’s wishes (Schneider, 1971). Thus, women themselves may instigate violence through gossip (Mora, 2009), applying pressure on male family members to act (Faqir, 2001), and/or creating the circumstances (e.g. the victim’s attendance at a specific location) that facilitate HBV (Sev’er and Yurdakul, 2001). Nonetheless, only a small percentage of women are directly involved in violence against other women (Sev’er, 2012).

Meanwhile, although most victims of HBV are female, there is also evidence of victimisation among young men. According to Chesler (2010), 7% of victims in a sample of 230 honour killings examined worldwide between 1989 and 2009 were male; however, a German study on the prevalence of honour killings during 1996–2005 found that, of the 20 cases unequivocally classified as honour killings, 43% of victims were male (Oberwittler and Kasselt, 2011). Like wo...