In this article I propose a new model of namus, the concept recognized in some circum-Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and Central and South Asian cultures and usually translated as “honor.” One way to understand namus is to regard it as patrilineal sovereignty, particularly reproductive sovereignty. After an “honor killing,” a “defense of honor” explanatory narrative is told by both perpetrator and community alike. I argue that an honor killing represents a show of reproductive sovereignty by people who belong to a patrilineage. I first describe ethnographic contexts in which “honor killings” are operative, and then, relying on CitationDelaney's (1991) model of namus as deeply bound up with patrogenerative theories of procreation, argue that a hymen is both a symbolic and real border to membership in the group. Finally, I apply this new conceptualization to statecraft, specifically to killings carried out in Iraqi Kurdistan following the founding of the Kurdish statelet there in 1991. Here, reproductive sovereignty and defense of borders were operative writ large as “honor killing” logic was expanded from lineage to state.
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