Honor and the Political Economy of Marriage: Violence against Women in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq

190 Pages·2019·1.918 MB·English

by  Joanne Payton

The Politics of Marriage and Gender: Global Issues in Local Contexts
HONOR AND THE POLITICAL
ECONOMY OF MARRIAGE
Violence against Women in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq
JOANNE PAYTON
Foreword by Deeyah Khan
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Honor and the Po liti cal Economy
of Marriage
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The Politics of Marriage and Gender: Global Issues in Local Contexts
Series Editor: Péter Berta
The Politics of Marriage and Gender: Global Issues in Local Context series from
Rutgers University Press fills a gap in research by examining the politics of mar-
riage and related practices, ideologies, and interpretations, and addresses the
key question of how the politics of marriage has affected social, cultural, and
po liti cal pro cesses, relations, and bound aries. The series looks at the complex
relationships between the politics of marriage and gender, ethnic, national, reli-
gious, racial, and class identities, and analyzes how these relationships contrib-
ute to the development and management of social and po liti cal differences,
inequalities, and conflicts.
Joanne Payton, Honor and the Po liti cal Economy of Marriage: Vio lence against
Women in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq
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Honor and the Po liti cal
Economy of Marriage
Vio lence against Women in the
Kurdistan Region of Iraq
JOANNE PAYTON
Foreword by Deeyah Khan
RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEW BRUNSWICK, CAMDEN, AND NEWARK, NEW JERSEY, AND LONDON
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Payton, Joanne, 1972– author.
Title: Honor and the political economy of marriage : violence against
women in Kurdistan region of Iraq / Joanne Payton.
Description: New Brunswick : Rutgers University Press, [2019] |
Series: The Politics of marriage and gender: global issues in local contexts |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019006592 | ISBN 9781978801714 (paperback) | ISBN 9781978801721
(hardcover) | ISBN 9781978801752 (pdf) | ISBN 9781978801738 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Marriage—Economic aspects—Iraq—Kurdist?an. |
Kinship—Iraq—Kurdist?an. | Honor killings—Iraq—Kurdist?an. |
Family violence—Iraq—Kurdist?an. | Women, Kurdish—Violence against—
Iraq—Kurdist?an. | Women, Kurdish—Iraq—Kurdist?an—Social conditions.
Classification: LCC HQ666.3.Z9 K877 2019 | DDC 306.8109567/2—dc23
LC record available at https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchCode=
LCCN&searchArg=2019006592&searchType=1&permalink=y
A British Cataloging- in- Publication rec ord for this book is
available from the British Library.
Copyright © 2020 by Joanne Payton
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106
Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibition is
“fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law.
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American
National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
www . rutgersuniversitypress . org
Manufactured in the United States of Amer i ca
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CONTENTS
Series Foreword by Péter Berta vii
Foreword by Deeyah Khan ix
Note on Orthography xiii
1 Honor 1
2 The Prob lems of Earthly Existence 17
3 The Patriarchal Order 35
4 Marriage 49
5 Modernity 83
6 Quantitative Analy sis 104
7 The End of Honor 129
Acknowl edgments 139
Notes 141
References 147
Index 169
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SERIES FOREWORD
T
he politics of marriage (and divorce) is an often- used strategic tool in vari ous
social, cultural, economic, and po liti cal identity proj ects as well as in symbolic
conflicts between ethnic, national, or religious communities. Despite having
multiple strategic applicabilities, pervasiveness in everyday life, and huge sig-
nificance in performing and managing identities, the politics of marriage is sur-
prisingly underrepresented in both the international book publishing market
and the social sciences.
The Politics of Marriage and Gender: Global Issues in Local Contexts is a
series from Rutgers University Press examining the politics of marriage as a phe-
nomenon embedded into and intensely interacting with much broader social,
cultural, economic, and po liti cal pro cesses and practices such as globalization;
transnationalization; international migration; h uman trafficking; vertical social
mobility; the creation of symbolic bound aries between ethnic populations,
nations, religious denominations, or classes; family formation; or strug gles for
women’s and children’s rights. The series primarily aims to analyze practices,
ideologies, and interpretations related to the politics of marriage, and to out-
line the dynamics and diversity of relatedness— interplay and interdependence,
for instance— between the politics of marriage and the broader pro cesses and
practices mentioned above. In other words, most books in the series devote spe-
cial attention to how the politics of marriage and these pro cesses and practices
mutually shape and explain each other.
The series concentrates on, among other things, the complex relationships
between the politics of marriage and gender, ethnic, national, religious, racial,
and class identities globally, and examines how t hese relationships contribute
to the development and management of social, cultural, and po liti cal differences,
inequalities, and conflicts.
The series seeks to publish single- authored books and edited volumes that
develop a gap- filling and thought- provoking critical perspective, that are well-
balanced between a high degree of theoretical sophistication and empirical rich-
ness, and that cross or rethink disciplinary, methodological, or theoretical
bound aries. The thematic scope of the series is intentionally left broad to encour-
age creative submissions that fit within the perspectives outlined above.
vii
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viii SERIES FOREWORD
Among the potential topics closely connected with the prob lem sensitivity
of the series are “honor”- based vio lence; arranged (forced, child, e tc.) marriage;
transnational marriage markets, migration, and brokerage; intersections of mar-
riage and religion/class/race; the politics of agency and power within marriage;
reconfiguration of f amily: same- sex marriage/ union; the politics of love, inti-
macy, and desire; marriage and multicultural families; the politics (religious,
legal, e tc.) of divorce; the causes, forms, and consequences of polygamy in con-
temporary socie ties; sport marriage; refusing marriage; and so forth.
Joanne Payton’s study is a perfect fit within the scope of the series. In Honor and
the Po liti cal Economy of Marriage, Payton examines the changing relationship
between the meanings of “honor” and the patterns of vio lence against women
in Iraqi Kurdistan. Explaining honor- based vio lence from an analytical perspec-
tive based primarily on the anthropology of kinship and marriage rather than
that of religion, Payton demonstrates, in an innovative and convincing way, why
the concept of “patriarchal vio lence” (frequently associated with Islam itself)
should be treated critically, and how the topic of honor- based vio lence is often
used strategically in Islamophobic discourses in the West. Payton’s book also
sheds light on the consequences of the widespread use of culturalization in con-
ceptualizing and explaining honor- based vio lence as well as in justifying and
legitimizing it— highlighting the intense need for and usefulness of a less cul-
turalizing and less religion- focused analytical approach.
Péter Berta
University College London
School of Slavonic and East European Studies
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FOREWORD
DEEYAH KHAN
B
ack in 2012, a fter turning my back on a career as a musician, I de cided to shoot
a documentary film. I had no training. I had no experience. All I had was a cam-
era and a story to tell.
My own, personal story had started with being forced out of my musical
career, due to pressure from Islamist extremists who believed that women
shouldn’t sing, least of all sing Western pop songs on tele vi sion. The sudden
change in a life- course that I, and my father, had laid out for me since my early
childhood was devastating. I felt unmoored, lost. During this period I painfully
developed a new sense of purpose through reading all the letters and emails I
had received from my fans: through hearing their stories. Many of them came
from young people from backgrounds like my own South Asian, Muslim back-
ground. They described the pressure from their f amily and community to con-
form to restrictive standards of respectability, whether through accepting forced
marriage, wearing hijab against their wishes, or giving up on c areers or studies
that they aspired t oward. Many of these stories came from women and girls, feel-
ing the limitations of f amily “honor.”
In the end, the story I chose to tell w asn’t my own, nor was it any of the sto-
ries I had heard from my young fans. Instead I found a story that encapsulated
them all: the story of Banaz Mahmod. Banaz was a young Kurdish woman who
had grown up in London and who was pushed into marriage at a young age in
order to suit the demands of her family. The marriage failed, due to the horren-
dous abuses of Banaz’s husband. Banaz moved on to a new relationship, falling
head- over- heels in love with a young man who meant every thing to her, but who
did not have her f amily’s approval. She refused to give him up, despite extreme
family pressure. Her choice was intolerable to her family. They held a council
meeting where they determined that her life should be ended in order to appease
family honor. And so, for “honor,” Banaz was raped, strangled, and buried in a
suitcase by a group of men who had been hired by her u ncle. This was an act
that ended Banaz’s life and ruined several others: those of her broken family, her
bereft lover who ultimately committed suicide, her f ather and uncle imprisoned
for life, and a devastated community.
ix
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