Honour between Different Cultures and Legal Systems: Social Status, Reputation, Struggles for Recognition

Abstract

This article pursues a comparative approach to honour, a choice determined not only by the fact that anthropology, with regard to other disciplines, has striven to build its specificity on comparative analysis ever since its beginnings in the nineteenth century. A further reason is to steer clear of methodological nationalism,1 i.e. to sidestep forms of Orientalism.2 The point, therefore, is to avoid the pitfall by which issues of honour and its more violent forms, such as honour killings or blood feuds, are downscaled to a ‘Turkish’ or ‘Albanian problem’ or to a phenomenon specific solely to Middle Eastern societies.