@article{ref1,
title="Suicidal Performances: Voicing Discontent in a Girls' Dormitory in Kabul",
journal="Culture, medicine, and psychiatry",
year="2012",
author="Billaud, Julie",
volume="36",
number="2",
pages="264-285",
abstract="Female suicide in Afghanistan has generally been given economic and psychological explanations. More rarely has its social dimension been analysed. In this paper, I underline the communicative potential of Afghan women's suicide in the 'post-war/reconstruction' context. I highlight its ambiguous symbolic power and its anchorage in the subversive imaginary universe of women's poetic expression. I argue that while reproducing certain cultural ideas about women's inherent emotional fragility, women's suicide also challenges the honour system in powerful ways and opens possibilities for voicing discontent. I qualify female suicide as the 'art of the weak' (De Certeau 1980, 6), a covert form of protest, a performance-in the sense of Bauman (2004)-that builds upon traditional popular 'knowledge' about gender in order to manage the impression of an audience and make women's claims audible.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0165-005X",
doi="10.1007/s11013-012-9262-2",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11013-012-9262-2"
}