Honour Unmasked: Gender Violence, Law, and Power in Pakistan

Based on Shah's unique insights over many years of experience as a journalist, researcher, and administrator, this fascinating study shows how the state justice system and informal processes of redress are mutually implicated in providing a space for honour-related violence, in the Sindh province, known as karo-kari. The author persuasively argues, however, that the label, karo-kari, masks diverse underlining factors such as contest over leadership, resources, marital strategies, and uses the language of honour as a means of legitimating and appropriating power.

The book is an insightful, scholarly, lucid, and coherently argued treatise on the topic of honour killings. It contains fascinating and richly-detailed ethnography and engages on issues of concern across the anthropology of gender, politics, and law. This landmark study offers a new perspective for understanding and dealing with honour-related violence demonstrating that honour does not lead to violence but that such violence is strategy ‘masked in honour’.