Selling Names

Abstract

This chapter focuses on pension payments to the families of martyrs and explores the ways in which resources have been marshalled to address the ‘material dimension’ of state recognition. It describes the complexities of this task, including the state’s role in arbitrating whether a person who died in the conflict should be recognised as a ‘martyr’ and thus eligible for state support, and details the ways in which actors have grounded claims for material support. These distinctive discourses involve the mobilisation of the dead and their suffering to create material state obligations to the living. The final section takes a deeper look at the controversy around ‘selling names’, whereby the names of martyrs have taken on material value.