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Cultural Dynamics
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Madness, Diasporic Difference, and State Violence

Explaining Filicide in American Courts

Sharmila Rudrappa

University of Texas, USA, rudrappa{at}mail.la.utexas.edu

This article examines the state's mobilization of difference in meting out irrational violence through juxtaposing two filicidal cases, those of Andrea Yates and Sailaja Hathaway. Biological deviance in Andrea Yates's case and cultural difference in Sailaja Hathaway's case are used to administer retributive justice. However, in deciding on the cases of `mad' mothers, the state appears irrationally violent. First, ideas on what is culturally driven and psychotically driven behavior are arbitrary. And second, punishment is not proportional to crime. Yates killed her five children, but was declared innocent by reason of insanity, and is undergoing psychiatric treatment. Conversely, immigrant mother Hathaway's filicidal act did not have long-term physical effects on her two sons, yet she was sentenced to 15 years in prison. This article concludes that demarcating diasporic difference, through cultural testimony in Sailaja Hathaway's case in this instance, abets the state's classificatory and disciplinary functions while simultaneously concealing the state's maddening violence.

Key Words: cultural defense • mad states • postpartum psychosis • South Asian diaspora • state violence

Cultural Dynamics, Vol. 19, No. 2-3, 257-277 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0921374007080294
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