Hildegard Bodendieck-Engels„Ehrenmord“ vor deutschen Gerichten

About this book deutschenglish

Honour killing – how is this crime dealt with in Germany? How is a person who is accused of honour killing, but claims to have acted according to the code of honour in his native country, dealt with in criminal law and in criminal court cases? These questions are raised by the author, who has worked as a judge in criminal courts in Germany for a long time before she engaged in cultural anthropology and explored these questions under an anthropological viewpoint.

The research is based on ten court cases in Germany, dealing with honour killing during the period between 1979 and 2009. In these cases the participants in the proceedings argue controversially about the importance of culture and cultural difference, if and how far behaviour is influenced by culture and whether culture is a justification for honour killing. These discourses are the main focus of interest in this work.

The way in which the participants are dealing with cultural difference in the investigated cases demonstrates the correlation between culture and criminal law and the importance of the meaning of culture. The anthropological view gives evidence of a problematic understanding in German courts. Honour killings – the criminal act and the criminal behaviour - are simply understood as a result of cultural patterns.

Over the course of time, the interpretation of cultural difference changed noticeably, from respecting different cultural values and norms to their strict negation. There is evidence, that this difference is related to a similar development in other discourses in politics, media and sciences.

Ihr Werk im Verlag Dr. Kovač

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