‘Glad to have Honour’: continuity and change in minority women's lived experience of honour

Abstract

The concept of honour and associated phenomena have often been associated with a gender ideology which forces women to obey restrictive moral prescriptions; accordingly, honour has sometimes been understood as unilaterally negative for women's well-being. A critical analysis reveals, however, how reductionist understandings of honour flow from a culturalist framing of issues, such as honour-related violence, thereby failing to grasp the complexity of women's responses when socialized with traditional notions of honour. Based on the theoretical reflections of authors such as Phillips (2007), Ewing (2008) and Abu-Lughod (2011) and drawing on the narratives of two women of Moroccan descent in Belgium, this article aims to demonstrate how an analysis grounded in intersectionality theory and based on Bourdieu's concept of ‘habitus’ may provide a deeper insight into the complexities of women's lived experiences of honour. Rather than departing from fixed understandings of honour, it is argued that its content and meaning are fluid and changeable. Although closely linked with cultural ideologies and socialization processes which shape individual lives and experiences, these do not prevent personal choice and interpretation which, according to the positioning of individuals and their families in and outside their communities, may produce cultural continuity or bring about change.