title: Suicidal performances: voicing discontent in a girls' dormitory in Kabul.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Forum Transregional Studies, Humboldt University, Legal Cultures Program, Berlin, Germany. juliebillaud@yahoo.fr
authors.forename: Julie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Billaud
mesh_terms: D000346:Afghanistan / Q000453:epidemiology; D003469:Culture; D005260:Female; D006806:Human Rights; D006801:Humans; D008091:Literature; D013405:Suicide