The Role of Gender in `Expressive' Abuse at Abu Ghraib

In: Cultural sociology, Band 2, Heft 3, S. 275-299

Abstract

We analyze the court-martial of Sabrina Harman, one of the alleged `seven rotten apples' associated with specific incidents of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, vis-a-vis the Parsonian distinction between `instrumental' and `expressive' pattern-variables. The Parsonian distinction between instrumental and expressive roles served a multitude of functions simultaneously, and especially given the masculine code of the military. We move beyond Parsons to introduce the new concepts of `expressive abuse', `expressive torture', and `instrumental misuse of expressive functions' to capture the overall thrust of the courts-martial as well as important aspects of the abuse at Abu Ghraib as revealed through testimony, government reports, interviews, and other sources of data. Both co-authors were participant-observers at the courts-martial of Sabrina Harman and Lynndie England, and draw upon the testimony and data from those trials in addition to the documents that are cited.