SEMIOTICS OF HONOUR KILLING AND GENDER REPRESENTATION IN PAKISTANI PAINTINGS
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Date
2021
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UMT, Lahore
Abstract
Understanding the ideological implications of patriarchal norms of honour and the construction of social meanings related to gender by studying the authenticity of discursive representations is essential for foregrounding Pakistani social realities to those inside or outside the culturescape. The study, therefore, examines how gender is represented through visual signs in the paintings on honour killing, how social structures gain meaning on getting painted, how power dynamics work in the so-called traditional or patriarchal societies, and if and how these semiotic constructions represent, underrepresent, or misrepresent Pakistani context. The grammar of the visual design of forty paintings on honour killing, painted by male and female Pakistani painters belonging to different areas of Pakistan, have been qualitatively studied in the light of the theoretical understanding of ideational, interpersonal, and textual metafunctions suggested by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006), and the politics of representation suggested by Hutcheon (1989). To check the authenticity and cultural relevance of the representations, the findings gathered through the analysis of the paintings have further been verified by interviewing twenty teachers/visual artists teaching at Government College University, Lahore, National College of Arts, Lahore, University of the Punjab, and Beaconhouse National University, Lahore.