ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the ambiguity of biographical statements, in particular those that were delivered by inmates in the aftermath of their convictions, without any official request from a judicial authority. It also examines the moral significance of self-incrimination, even if it plays little or no role at all in the construction of evidence and the delivery of the final verdict. The chapter explores how the French notions operate in the context of contemporary Syrian courts and how they have been transplanted, adopted, and assimilated to understand their juridical and political connotations in a developing country like Syria. Practices of self-examination, which are internalized and acknowledged by an external authority, or a "hermeneutics of the self" for that matter, tend to be problematic in patrimonial societies where kinship matters and where disciplinary practices are historically not predominant. A criminal is indebted to society–and to his or her family–when kin matters.
