1. Objectifs

Intentions :
In this article, the author analyses the culture debates of the past few decades in the context of violence against Muslim women. She begins with her «own work to identify where the difficulties lie in talking culture before turning to feminist considerations of honour killings in Palestine and India, and finally to Canada.» (p. 32) She looks into the Shafia case as an example.

Questions/Hypothèses :
«This article considers the question “Should feminists stop talking about culture?” in cases of violence against Muslim women.» (p. 32)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
Données documentaires diverses

Type de traitement des données :
Réflexion critique

3. Résumé

The author suggests that cultural details in a criminal trial as the honour killing narrative in the Shafia case «contribute little to an enhanced legal understanding of the crime; indeed, this is not their primary purpose. Instead, the cultural details are really part of a pedagogy, intending to convey to Canadians a message of their racial and cultural superiority with respect to the accused. The media collaborates in this endeavour, as Grewal (2014) showed for India and as Dana Olwan (2013) has shown for the Shafia trials. Inside the courtroom, the privileged status of jurors, lawyers, and judges, who are often steeped in an understanding of Muslim cultures as barbaric and are likely to be operating with a culturalist understanding of violence, is reinforced by the racial thrust of the honour crime message; culture talk simultaneously creates two types of subject: superior White or White-aspiring subjects whose national belonging is confirmed, and abject racial or cultural others who are outsiders to the nation.» (p. 41-42) Then, the author argues that «the Shafia killings led to a racial media spectacle […]. Schliesmann (2012) concluded that the Shafias, and in particular Mohammed Shafia, “were clearly not prepared to adapt to the secular society they were living in” […].» (p. 39)