Dealing with the complex case law concerning the use of the provocation defence in cases of intimate killings, Sex, Culpability and the Defence of Provocation considers the construction and representation of subjectivity and sexual difference in legal narrations of homicide. Undeniably, the most vexing exculpatory cultural narrative of our times is that of a woman 'asking for it'. Addressing the operation of the criminal law on provocation across different international jurisdictions, this book explores how the process of judgment in a criminal trial involves not only the drawing of inferences from the ‘facts’ of a particular case, but also operates to deliver a narrative. Law, it is argued, constructs a narrative of how the female body incites male violence. And, pursuing an approach that is informed by socio-legal studies, literary theory and feminist theories of the body, Sex, Culpability and the Defence of Provocation considers how this narrative is constructed via a range of discursive practices that position woman as a threat to masculine norms of propriety and autonomy.
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