Honour Unmasked

Honour Unmasked

Gender Violence, Law, and Power in Pakistan

Nafisa Shah

Based on Nafisa Shah's unique insights over years of experience as a journalist, researcher, and administrator, this fascinating study highlights how the state justice system and informal processes of redress are mutually implicated in providing a space for honour-related violence in the Sindh province, known as karo-kari. The author persuasively argues, however, that the label, karo-kari, masks diverse underlining factors such as contest over leadership, resources, marital strategies, and uses the language of honor as a means of legitimating and appropriating power.

The book is a sensitive, scholarly, lucid, and coherently argued treatise on the topic of honor killings. It contains fascinating and richly-detailed ethnography and engages on issues of concern across the anthropology of gender, politics, and law. This landmark study offers a new perspective for understanding and dealing with honour-related violence, demonstrating that honor does not lead to violence but that such violence is strategy ‘masked in honor’.

AUTHOR DESCRIPTION

Nafisa Shah is an academic, writer, artist, and accidental politician. She has a PhD. in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Oxford. She is presently serving her second term as Member of the National Assembly from the Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarian platform. As MNA, Shah is a strong voice on rights-based policy and has led cross-party caucusing on gender. She was elected Nazim (mayor) of Khairpur district in 2001, being one of the only two women District Nazims in Pakistan. She worked previously as a journalist in the English language magazine Newsline.

• ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
• REVIEWS