Theater of Public Punishment in Pakistan: A Discourse Analysis of Demand for Public Hanging

Abstract

This paper investigates the discourse of public hanging of rapists on the social media space, that is, Twitter in Pakistan. It also examines how this discourse is interdiscursively related to the power relations particularly implicated in the discourses on religion and gender and the possible effects of this discursive struggle on society. By employing Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) for analysis, this research uses Laclau and Mouffe’s Discourse Theory as theoretical framework. We conclude that the discourse approving death by hanging for the rapists is a device to propagate the power and the fear of the State. It has a “repetition induced effect” and implies sovereign’s exception; and women are silenced in their demands for justice against the patriarchal social structures which are responsible for crime against women’s body. It also reifies the patriarchal structures and controls societies through vengeance rather than reformative justice.