ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the concept of honour and shame in relation to South Asian British Muslim men and women in the context of a focus group discussion stimulated by a carefully selected series of photographs relating to the sale into marriage of two British Muslim girls by their father. Honour and shame are a complex phenomenon affecting people of diverse ethnic, sociocultural and religious heritage. Using photo-elicitation as a method for exploring cultural beliefs, the photographs were presented to the focus group without any explanatory text in order to elicit ideas and attitudes towards honour and shame. The images were instrumental in obtaining rich, qualitative and emotive data, which resulted in a dramatic outburst from the participants when the story behind the images was revealed. Key elements of honour and shame were identified as individual, family and sociocultural expectations of lifestyle choices, power and control being separate entities to this notion and gender inequalities and discrimination towards females by males.
