Honour Killings

This is a much-needed study—a combination of academic and activist views on the problem of honour killings. There is no one approach to addressing such crimes, and this book reflects the diverse views of its authors. It is edited by Shahrzad Mojab, the director of the Institute for Women’s Studies and Gender Studies at the University of Toronto, and Nahla Abdo, a professor of sociology at Carleton University. Most of the chapters in this volume originated at the International Seminar on Violence in the Name of Honour, held in Istanbul on December 4–6, 2003. Because of the particular interests of the participants, most of the discussions focus on the Palestinian and Kurdish communities, and the Scandinavian context of immigrant communities.

Nahla Abdo suggests that Middle East discourse needs to be developed with a “theory of the sexual,” and she states that “the primary feminist academic role must be ensuring the removal of the sexual from the private realm and into...