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Paper Short Abstract:

In this paper i will discuss methodological, ethical and legal aspects of doing research on two forms of genital practices, infibulation and labia elongation, for anthropological positioning in terms of data-collection, analysis, and writing.

Paper Abstract:

Various communities, groups and individuals practice various forms of genital manipulation – including practices (such as male and female circumcision/genital cutting/mutilation, cosmetic surgery, gender affirmative surgery, hymenoplasty), for various reasons, (including tradition, religion, aesthetics, health), and with various legal regulation (illegal for minors only, or for all, with parental consent only, or not even with adult individual consent, or depending on provider).

Based on the two practices I have studied most in-depth, infibulation (the most extensive form of female genital mutilation/cutting) among migrants in Norway, and labia elongation among Mozambican migrants in Tanzania, I will explore the grey areas of legality and illegality and the researchers methodological, ethical, legal, and moral reflections both on data-collection, analysis, and writing.

In my paper I seek insight into motivations and cultural meaning for support and opposition to the practice, as well as he personal experiences of the practices and the legal regulations, and the anthropological maneuver.

The debate, even within anthropology, on Female genital cutting/mutilation has and still is strongly polarized. On the one sides are anthropologists arguing for this practice as a cultural right, and minimize and cast doubt upon literature on health complications (Ahmadu 2000). On the other hand, there are researchers who focus on the health risk and the pain and personal experiences of the practice, and how it may diverge from cultural meaning (Johansen, 2002; Gruenbaum, E., & Ahmed, 2022; Talle 2010). Shepher-Huges was an early contributor to this debate, and her insistence that anthropologists should stay away from FGC studies: “Hands off! Enough is enough! (And two Rivers prize awards and one previous honourable mention for papers on this topic is more than enough). Let Egyptians and Sudanese women argue this one out for themselves.” (Shepher-Hughes 1991; 26). Her petition is even more striking when seen in relation to her general appeal for the opposite, arguing that scholarly research must be “ethically grounded” and that cultural relativism, if read as moral relativism, “is no longer appropriate to the world in which we live” (Shepher-Hughes 1995; 410).

In diaspora, the different legal regulations of different vaginal practices become more acute, as it coincides with residence status (minority versus majority), ethnic discrimination), and creates heated debates. Furthermore, in this context, anthropological writings about these practices may have implications for policy and practice, requiring significant attention to method and ethics.

References

Ahmadu, F. (2000). "Rites and wrongs: An insider/outsider reflects on power and excision." Female “circumcision” in Africa: Culture, controversy, and change: 283-312.

Gruenbaum, E., & Ahmed, S. A. (2022). Thoughtful comparisons: how do genital cutting traditions change in Sudan? A reply to ‘The prosecution of Dawoodi Bohra women’ by Richard Shweder. Global Discourse, 12(1), 189-206. Retrieved Jan 22, 2024, from https://doi.org/10.1332/204378921X16349703862780

Johansen, R. E. B. (2002). "Pain as a counterpoint to culture: toward an analysis of pain associated with infibulation among Somali immigrants in Norway." Medical Anthropology Quarterly 16(3): 312-340.

Schepher-Huges, N. (1991). Virgin Territory: The Male Discovery of the Clitoris. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 5(1), 25-28. 141

Schepher-Huges, N. (1995). The primacy of the ethical: Propositions for a militant anthropology. Current Anthropology, 36(3), 409-20.

Talle, A. (2010). Getting the Ethnography Right'. On Female Circumcision in Exile. Ethnographic Practice in the Present. M. a. W. Melhus, EASA series, Berghahan books. 11: 107-120.

Talle, A. (2007). Female Circumcision in Africa and Beyond: The Anthropology of a Difficult Issue. In: Hernlund, Ylva and Shell-Duncan, Bettina (eds.). Transcultural Bodies: Female Genital Cutting in Global Context. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press