7 - Witnesses to a Sovereign Imaginary

Summary

Finally, Chapter 7 outlines the effect of the martyr’s performance. Interrogating the discourses surrounding martyrdom, I show how the crises faced were perceived as a moment when the community and its foundations will either be revitalized or lost forever. In response, cries that members retain their traditional identity are linked with affirmations of loyalty to the community and its cosmological foundations. I argue martyrdoms are performed in service to what I term sovereign imaginaries: coherent visions of cosmic order and authority that legitimate acts of killing and being killed. In these contexts, multiple authorities converge on bodies; violence is used by political institutions to encourage obedience, but martyrs show that such measures cannot force individual action. A decision must be made by each individual as to which imaginary to give form in their body. I use this insight to analyze the place of martyrdom within sovereign constructions, engaging the frame of political theology and decentering the central concern with a decision by a sovereign leader to the decision of individuals whether or not to recognize authority.