Browsing by Author "Sekulovic, Nina"

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1

Uses of Culture :debating Honor Killings Cultural Defense and Its Consequences
(Kadir Has Üniversitesi, 2016) Sekulovic, Nina; Soysal, Levent
The concept of culture has been exploited numerous times as a justification for all sorts of wrongful actions misunderstandings and unbridgeable gaps and the case of honor killings that will be here in the focus is no exception. This Thesis will be focused on recognizing unfair attribution to culture but at the same time not forgetting about its victims or gender category that may easily be neglected or undermined in the light of East-West dichotomy ethnocentrism or cultural relativism. identifying honor killings as a culture of some groups usually Muslim one may lead to their stigmatization and at the same time prolong and strengthen the East-West collision. Further on same acts of violence may be explained through completely different frameworks where almost always cultural or collective one will be referred to East while psychological or individual one to West. The challenge is in analyzing stigmatization of Muslims in a way that will not be caught in an unproductive and never-ending net of East-West accusations. Here feminist approach that recognizes universality of the worldwide violence against women may give a tool for more constructive and beneficial position towards honor killings. Ultimately the most harmful way of looking upon honor killings would be not dealing with this matter as somehow not concerning all of us but simply and only belonging to some cultures and religions. My intention is questioning popularly perceived closeness between culture and practice of honor killings.