TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2012//
TI  - Suicidal Performances: Voicing Discontent in a Girls' Dormitory in Kabul
JO  - Culture, medicine, and psychiatry
A1  - Billaud, Julie
SP  - 264
EP  - 285
VL  - 36
IS  - 2
N2  - 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>
LA  - en
SN  - 0165-005X
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11013-012-9262-2
ID  - ref1
ER  -