WUNRN
Direct Link to Full 73-Page Report (Log In Registration May Be Required):
___________________________________________________________________________
RELIGION, CULTURE & THE
POLITICIZATION OF HONOUR-RELATED VIOLENCE:
A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF MEDIA &
POLICY DEBATES IN WESTERN EUROPE
& NORTH AMERICA (Draft)
Authors:
Anna C. Korteweg, Gökçe Yurdakul
Project Title: Religion,
Politics and Gender Equality
Over
the past decade, the issue of honour-related violence (including honour killing
and forced marriage) has entered media and policy debates in
immigrant-receiving countries like the Netherlands, Germany, Britain and
Canada. In some of these countries, media debate has instigated policy debate.
This paper analyses how media, parliaments
and other state institutions, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
conceptualize honour killing and honour-related violence in order to uncover
how such conceptualizations inform policy responses. The analysis reveals three
main trends:
i. discussions that link honour killing to Islam
and/or the backwardness of immigrant communities in ways that lead to the
stigmatization of entire immigrant communities;
ii. culture-blind portrayals of honour-related
violence as domestic violence or violence against women that do not pay
attention to cultural specificities; and
iii. debates that are contextually specific,
framing honour-related violence as a contextually informed form of violence
against women that occurs within particular immigrant communities but where
this violence does not essentialize the culture and practices of those
communities as a whole.
The paper shows that these discursive
conceptualizations inform different policy approaches to the issue. Korteweg
and Yurdakul contend that discussions of honour-related violence that
stigmatize are more likely to lead to general anti-immigrant policies or
policies that impede settlement. Debates that frame honour-related violence as
a variant of the generally widespread problem of domestic violence and violence
against women are more likely to lead to policies that directly target these
forms of violence.
The country-specific findings show that the
stigmatization of Muslim communities is present in media and political debates
in each country, albeit in varying degrees. In the Netherlands, the authors
found contextually specific policy making, which was embedded in the country’s
multiculturalist tradition. Although there is a recent debate on the decline of
multiculturalism in the Netherlands, institutional structures still permit
immigrant-oriented and inclusive political decision-making processes. The
policies against gendered violence in the Netherlands are largely contextually
specific, integrating different actors (such as NGOs, shelters and police) and
aiming for prevention and protection as well as prosecution. By contrast, the
German media and political debates are particularly stigmatizing without
informing or offering alternative ways of policy making. This has led to
policies that generally restrict immigration rather than those that directly
target gendered violence in immigrant communities. In Britain, perhaps the most
paradoxical case of all four countries, stigmatization and contextually
specific approaches were both present. The recent shift from British
multiculturalism to social cohesion policies brings a new approach to dealing
with immigrant-related issues in the country in general, and policy approaches
to gendered violence in immigrant communities has partially reflected this
shift in immigrant integration policies. Culture-blind portrayals of
honour-related violence are especially prevalent in Canadian media and
political debates. In Canada, violence against women in immigrant communities
is discussed only within the domestic violence framework, ignoring the
immigration context that may affect this kind of violence. Therefore, no
policies in Canada specifically acknowledge, define or target honour-related
violence.
The authors suggest that policy responses will
be effective only insofar as gendered violence is understood within its social,
cultural and political context and if that context is not seen as foreign but
rather as part of the new social relations in the immigrant-receiving society.
Hence, they argue that honour-related violence needs to be understood not as a
“cultural” or “religious” problem that afflicts particular immigrant
communities (in this case, often those perceived and represented as Muslim) but
as a specific manifestation of the larger problem of violence against women
(which concerns all communities, whether immigrant or not) that in the case of
immigrant communities is shaped and informed by the immigration experience.
Only a contextually specific approach allows for this understanding.