Discourses on Honour-Related Violence in Finnish Policy Documents

: Tuuli Hong

Publisher: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group

: 2014

: NORA Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research

: 22

: 4

: 314

: 329

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/08038740.2014.964648

ABSTRACT In Finland, issues linked to honour-related violence (HRV) have gained attention

relatively late compared to other Nordic countries. The aim of this paper is to study how the issue

has been presented in Finnish policy documents published between 2004 and 2012. The analysis is

based on a discourse-analytical approach, which enables critical consideration of prevailing

understandings of HRV, of the causes assumed to lie behind it, and the different subject positions the

dominant discourses offer for victims and perpetrators. A further question concerns the measures

proposed in the analysed policy documents: Do these measures reflect the understanding(s) of HRV

promoted in the discourses? It is argued that the presentations of HRV are involved in creating

boundaries between “us”, the Finnish-majority population, and the Other, immigrant population.

Furthermore, the reasons behind HRV are understood as coinciding with the prevailing schemes of

“patriarchal immigrant communities”. This has led to measures combining the combat against

violence with integration policies, which in issues of gender equality aspire towards immigrants’

assimilation. Consequently, violence against immigrant women—especially HRV—is located

outside the sphere of criminal policy.