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Honour, Shame, and Bodily Mutilation. Cutting off the Nose among Tribal Societies in Pakistan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2006

Extract

Bodily mutilations, such as nose-cutting, are recorded worldwide from different cultural settings. Hence the custom is not solely an example of “Oriental violence and cruelty” (at times quoted in Orientalist sources from the colonial period). I want to emphasise that I am not arguing from the vantage point of a colonial discourse with its criticism of “degenerate and barbaric” social customs. Instead, this paper deals with the human body as a symbol of society. It is particularly focused on the symbolic significance of nose-cutting and on understanding this violent impulse as a social practice. The underlying notion is that cultural categories, such as “honour” and “shame”, are encoded in body morphology and affect behaviour.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2006

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