scholarly journals The socio-cultural-symbolic nexus in the perpetuation of female genital cutting: a critical review of existing discourses

Afrika Focus ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-69
Author(s):  
Tammary Esho ◽  
Steven Van Wolputte ◽  
Paul Enzlin
Keyword(s):  
Female Circumcision ◽  
The Body ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Cultural Value ◽  
Female Genital Cutting ◽  
Unintended Effects ◽  
Genital Mutilation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Genital Cutting ◽  
Female Genital

Female Genital Cutting (FGC), also known as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and Female Circumcision (FC), continues to be a prevalent practice in many parts of the world and especially in Africa. This is somewhat perplexing given the concerted efforts aimed at eradicating this practice. This article argues that the perperuation of FGC is due to the unintended effects of marginalization experienced by individuals and groups of women as a result of the approach of some of the anti-FGC global discourses and policies put forward to eradicate the practice. This, we argue, happens when the social structure that provides such groups and individuals with a sense of identity and belonging breaks down. Therefore, the attack on what practicing communities consider to be of crucial cultural value causes a re-focus on the practice resulting in a re-formulation and re-invention of these practices in a bid to counter the feelings of alienation. FGC is thus reframed and reconstructed as a reaction against these campaigns. This article intends to investigate the socio-cultural-symbolic nexus surrounding the practice of FGC, its meaning and implications with respect to its continued existence. It draws examples mainly from communities in Kenya that practice FGM as a rite of passage into adulthood. Herein, perhaps, lies the driving force behind the practice in this contemporary age: it carries a lot of significance with respect to transformational processes, and it is seen as crucial in the representation of the body, identity and belonging. The aim of this article is not to defend FGC’s continuation, but rather to explore the interplay between its changing socio-cultural dimensions as a counter-reaction to the eradication discourse and policies. In this way we will try to explore some of the factors that lay behind its perpetuation.

scholarly journals The socio-cultural-symbolic nexus in the perpetuation of female genital cutting: a critical review of existing discourses

Afrika Focus ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tammary Esho ◽  
Steven Van Wolputte ◽  
Paul Enzlin
Keyword(s):  
Female Circumcision ◽  
The Body ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Cultural Value ◽  
Female Genital Cutting ◽  
Unintended Effects ◽  
Genital Mutilation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Genital Cutting ◽  
Female Genital

Female Genital Cutting (FGC), also known as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and Female Circumcision (FC), continues to be a prevalent practice in many parts of the world and especially in Africa. This is somewhat perplexing given the concerted efforts aimed at eradicating this practice. This article argues that the perpetuation of FGC is due to the unintended effects of marginalization experienced by individuals and groups of women as a result of the approach of some of the anti-FGC global discourses and policies put forward to eradicate the practice. This, we argue, happens when the social structure that provides such groups and individuals with a sense of identity and belonging breaks down. Therefore, the attack on what practicing communities consider to be of crucial cultural value causes a re-focus on the practice resulting in a re-formulation and re-invention of these practices in a bid to counter the feelings of alienation. FGC is thus reframed and reconstructed as a reaction against these campaigns. This article intends to investigate the socio-cultural-symbolic nexus surrounding the practice of FGC, its meaning and implications with respect to its continued existence. It draws examples mainly from communities in Kenya that practice FGM as a rite of passage into adulthood. Herein, perhaps, lies the driving force behind the practice in this contemporary age: it carries a lot of significance with respect to transformational processes, and it is seen as crucial in the representation of the body, identity and belonging. The aim of this article is not to defend FGC’s continuation, but rather to explore the interplay between its changing socio-cultural dimensions as a counter-reaction to the eradication discourse and policies. In this way we will try to explore some of the factors that lay behind its perpetuation. Key words: body practices, female genital cutting, female circumcision, femininity, cultural identity 

scholarly journals Towards a solution concerning female genital mutilation? An approach from within according to Islamic legal opinions

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 216-236
Author(s):  
Jens Kutscher
Keyword(s):  
Female Genital Mutilation ◽  
Female Circumcision ◽  
Female Physician ◽  
Female Genital Cutting ◽  
Genital Mutilation ◽  
Western Asia ◽  
Legal Opinions ◽  
Genital Cutting ◽  
Ethiopian Jews ◽  
Female Genital

Female circumcision is a tradition that is widespread and not restricted to predominantly Muslim countries. It is prevalent among all religious groups in many parts of Africa and Western Asia, whether they are Coptic Christians, Ethiopian Jews, or Arab Muslims. Female genital cutting or—more to the point—female genital mutilation (FGM), generally referred to as circumcision, occurs in at least five different forms. Circumcision is essentially a powerful bodily sign of the human—male and female—covenant with God. In the Quran it is reaffirmed in sura al-Nahl and quoted as example in the fatwas endorsing circumcision. It seems to be true that men are hardly involved in the actual decision in favour of female genital cutting. A man should not interfere in the decision of women to be circumcised. It is practiced and transmitted among women and midwives. Only sometimes is a (male or female) physician involved. On the basis of Islamic normativity, mirrored in fatwas, this paper aims to examine a very ambivalent approach concerning female genital mutilation.

scholarly journals Female Genital Cutting: A Persistent African Health Challenge

2020 ◽  
Vol I (1) ◽  
pp. 01-06
Author(s):  
Mohamed Nabih EL-Gharib
Keyword(s):  
Female Genital Mutilation ◽  
Female Circumcision ◽  
Female Genital Cutting ◽  
Genital Mutilation ◽  
Health Challenge ◽  
African Health ◽  
Historical Origin ◽  
Genital Cutting ◽  
Female Genital

Female genital mutilation or female circumcision is a worldwide problem, though it is universally prohibited. The definition, historical origin, indications and types of mutilations, technic of performance, and complication are discussed in this article.

scholarly journals Recommendation to Prohibit, Un-Islamic and Harmful Cultural Custom of Female Genital Mutilation

rahatulquloob ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 52-65
Author(s):  
Najia Almas ◽  
Prof. Dr. Muhammad Khan sangi ◽  
Prof. Dr. Rafiq Ahmed Memon
Keyword(s):  
Female Genital Mutilation ◽  
Female Circumcision ◽  
Complete Removal ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
Female Genital Cutting ◽  
Genital Organ ◽  
Genital Mutilation ◽  
The World ◽  
Genital Cutting ◽  
Female Genital

Female genital mutilation and female genital cutting that undertakes partial or complete removal of female genital organ, is practiced in certain parts of the world in general and in African Arab countries particularly. This is not religious but cultural and Muslim, Christian and to some extent by Jew communities are involved in this custom of circumcising the girls and women prior to their marriages. On the other hand, female circumcision involves the removal of prepuce which should not be confused with FGM (female genital mutilation), for they are completely two different procedures. However, Keeping the circle of the discussion to Muslims, it is very important to mention that there is no Ayat/verse in Al-Quran which even refers to female circumcision, which is also called as Islamic Circumcision. Only weak hadiths are found to support the procedure. However, these hadiths compl-etely forbid FGM as well as Islamic Shariah scholars prohibit this procedure after in carefully conclusive analysis of the said hadiths to be performed on women. FGM dosn’t has any health benefits instead this is very harmful and leads such victims to many gynecological, psychological, emotional and mental complications.

scholarly journals Defining Gendered Oppression in U.S. Newspapers: The Strategic Value of “Female Genital Mutilation”

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Wade
Keyword(s):  
Female Genital Mutilation ◽  
Female Genital Cutting ◽  
The West ◽  
Genital Mutilation ◽  
Strategic Value ◽  
Traditional Societies ◽  
Genital Cutting ◽  
Newspaper Text ◽  
Feminist Movements ◽  
Female Genital

According to the logic of the gendered modernity/tradition binary, women in traditional societies are oppressed and women in modern societies liberated. While the binary valorizes modern women, it potentially erases gendered oppression in the West and undermines feminist movements on behalf of Western women. Using U.S. newspaper text, I ask whether female genital cutting (FGC) is used to define women in modern societies as liberated. I find that speakers use FGC to both uphold and challenge the gendered modernity/tradition binary. Speakers use FGC to denigrate non-Western cultures and trivialize the oppressions that U.S. women typically encounter, but also to make feminist arguments on behalf of women everywhere. I argue that in addition to examining how culturally imperialist logics are reproduced, theorists interested in feminist postcolonialism should turn to the distribution of such logics, emphasizing the who, where, when, and how of reinscription of and resistance to such narratives.

Perversion and Perpetration in Female Genital Mutilation Law: The Unmaking of Women as Bearers of Law

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maree Pardy ◽  
Juliet Rogers ◽  
Nan Seuffert
Keyword(s):  
Female Genital Mutilation ◽  
New South ◽  
Female Genital Cutting ◽  
Demonic Possession ◽  
Genital Mutilation ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Genital Cutting ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Female Genital

Female genital cutting (FGC) or, more controversially, female genital mutilation, has motivated the implementation of legislation in many English-speaking countries, the product of emotive images and arguments that obscure the realities of the practices of FGC and the complexity of the role of the practitioner. In Australia, state and territory legislation was followed, in 2015, with a conviction in New South Wales highlighting the problem with laws that speak to fantasies of ‘mutilation’. This article analyses the positioning of Islamic women as victims of their culture, represented as performing their roles as vehicles for demonic possession, unable to authorize agency or law. Through a perverse framing of ‘mutilation’, and in the case through the interpretation of the term ‘mutilation’, practices of FGC as law performed by women are obscured, avoiding the challenge of a real multiculturalism that recognises lawful practices of migrant cultures in democratic countries.

scholarly journals The Applicability of Behaviour Change in Intervention Programmes Targeted at Ending Female Genital Mutilation in the EU: Integrating Social Cognitive and Community Level Approaches

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Brown ◽  
David Beecham ◽  
Hazel Barrett
Keyword(s):  
Behaviour Change ◽  
Female Genital Mutilation ◽  
Female Circumcision ◽  
Behavioural Change ◽  
Community Change ◽  
World Health ◽  
Female Genital Cutting ◽  
Genital Mutilation ◽  
Female Genital ◽  
The Eu

With increased migration, female genital mutilation (FGM) also referred to as female circumcision or female genital cutting is no longer restricted to Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. The European Parliament estimates that up to half a million women living in the EU have been subjected to FGM, with a further 180,000 at risk. Aware of the limited success of campaigns addressing FGM, the World Health Organization recommended a behavioural change approach be implemented in order to end FGM. To date, however, little progress has been made in adopting a behaviour change approach in strategies aimed at ending FGM. Based on research undertaken as part of the EU’s Daphne III programme, which researched FGM intervention programmes linked to African communities in the EU (REPLACE), this paper argues that behaviour change has not been implemented due to a lack of understanding relating to the application of the two broad categories of behaviour change approach: individualistic decision-theoretic and community-change game-theoretic approaches, and how they may be integrated to aid our understanding and the development of future intervention strategies. We therefore discuss how these can be integrated and implemented using community-based participatory action research methods with affected communities.

scholarly journals The Politics of Acculturation: Female Genital Cutting and the Challenge of Building Multicultural Democracies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Wade
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Model ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Cultural Adaptation ◽  
Female Genital Mutilation ◽  
Newspaper Coverage ◽  
Female Genital Cutting ◽  
Genital Mutilation ◽  
Primary Documents ◽  
Genital Cutting ◽  
Female Genital

Understanding how the idea of culture is mobilized in discursive contests is crucial for both theorizing and building multicultural democracies. To investigate this, I analyze a debate over whether we should relieve the “cultural need” for infibulation among immigrants by offering a “nick” in U.S. hospitals. Using interviews, newspaper coverage, and primary documents, I show that physicians and opponents of the procedure with contrasting models of culture disagreed on whether it represented cultural change. Opponents argued that the “nick” was fairly described as “female genital mutilation” and symbolically identical to more extensive cutting. Using a reified model, they imagined Somalis to be “culture-bound”; the adoption of a “nick” was simply a move from one genital cutting procedure to another. Unable to envision meaningful cultural adaptation, and presupposing the incompatibility of multiculturalism and feminism, they supported forced assimilation. Physicians, drawing on a dynamic model of culture, believed that adoption of the “nick” was meaningful cultural change, but overly idealized their ability to protect Somali girls from both Somali and U.S. patriarchy. Unduly confident, they failed to take oppression seriously, dismissing relevant constituencies and their concerns.

scholarly journals Journalism, Advocacy, and the Social Construction of Consensus

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Wade
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Newspaper Coverage ◽  
Female Genital Cutting ◽  
The Social ◽  
Primary Documents ◽  
Physical Presence ◽  
Genital Cutting ◽  
Issue Advocacy ◽  
Female Genital

Scholarship examining media coverage of social problems largely examines coverage of contentious issues. In this study, I contribute to our understanding of journalist practices by examining coverage of an issue over which there is a US consensus: female genital cutting (FGC). With an analysis of newspaper coverage supplemented by interviews and primary documents, I find that, in contrast to existing literature that shows that reporters must refrain from issue advocacy, when consensus is widespread reporters can and do collaborate with advocates, harmonize with opinion writers, and use their physical presence and access to newsprint to pressure the state. Journalists, however, do not simply respond to consensus. Instead, I find that they can actively construct consensus by offering unique frames that depoliticize advocacy. These findings contribute to our understanding of media coverage of social problems by illustrating how consensus is both shaped by and shapes journalist practices.

The Twilight of Cutting

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saida Hodzic
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Dilemmas ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Female Genital Cutting ◽  
The Social ◽  
Feminist Theories ◽  
Immanent Critique ◽  
Genital Cutting ◽  
Legal Rationality ◽  
Legal Interventions ◽  
Female Genital

Departing from common treatment of female genital cutting as an African problem to be debated within Western moral and critical publics, this book examines how Ghanaians problematize and materialize cutting as an African concern in which Western reason and governmentality have been implicated since colonialism. It examines the genealogies of activist and governmental efforts to end cutting (including feminist, public health, and legal interventions and cultural reforms) and the forms of rule, subjectivity, and positioning they produce. It attends to the social concerns and ethical dilemmas of women and men who have been most engaged in and affected by them. Ghanaian opposition to NGOs does not take the shape in the continuation of the practice, as they accommodate NGO platforms, but critique what they leave unaddressed. They question extractive governance that takes without giving and disidentify with the legal rationality of sovereign violence that punishes without caring. They desire governance based on ethics of relationality and mutual responsibility. This ethnography challenges and reinvigorates anthropological and feminist theories about neoliberal punitive rationality and feminist love of law, efficacy and unintended consequences of NGO interventions, minimalist biopolitics of saving lives, and postcolonial abandonment in the postcolonial world. It also charts a path for working against the analytical and political common sense by cultivating sensibilities on the basis of disidentification and immanent critique.

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