Parishti Project

I have a habit of dissecting theories by slicing in unexpected places to see if the theory still works as advertised. I think that is how science is done.

That is why the western narrative of honour-based violence (HBV) never made sense to me. If every Muslim and Sikh woman who knew her own mind was perpetually at risk of HBV as a function of her cultural membership, why were Muslim and Sikh women (with an internal locus of control) not all dying at the hands of male relatives? Instead of asking why, I asked why not?

I also asked how help-seeking targets of HBV know that they are at risk when the domestic violence fatality risk assessment (DVFRA) checklists cannot identify that risk? What do they know that writes of checklists do not?

Help-seeking victims of HBV know that the social dynamic of honour-based violence is comparable to that of the Public Goods Game (PGG), in which:

--> players each voluntarily contribute to a common pool of money;

--> the common pool is used to create a public good (like roads, schools, and hospitals);

--> each player benefits equally from the public good, regardless of their contribution.

Players who gain a benefit without making a contribution are free-riders. As long as free-riders remain, the each iteration of PGG will see more defections until the game collapses because players do not see a benefit in participating.

Simplex Altruistic Punishment (SAP) allows a player to punish free-riders by paying into a pool that reduces or eliminates the benefit of being a free-rider. The punisher carries the cost of enforcement alone, the benefit of enforcing compliance accrues to the whole group.

SAP alone does not make the PGG stable, as there are now free-riders on the SAP pool.

Duplex Altruistic Punishment (DAP) allows punishers to punish non-punishers (NP) for being free-riders on the SAP pool. Forcing NP into compliance stabilizes the PGG.

A collapsed PGG also collapses the social group/society that the game was intended to benefit. It is the existential threat of social collapse that drives HBV.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_goods_game