Female genital cutting: cultural rights and rites of defiance in northern Tanzania

Anna Winterbottom, Jonneke Koomen, Gemma Burford

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This article reviews campaigns against female genital cutting (FGC) directed at Maasai communities in northern Tanzania. The authors argue that campaigns against FGC using educational, health, legal, and human rights-based approaches are at times ineffective and counterproductive when they frame the practice as a "tradition" rooted in a "primitive" and unchanging culture. We suggest that development interventions that do not address local contexts of FGC, including the complex politics and history of interventions designed to eradicate it, can in fact reify and reinscribe the practice as central to Maasai cultural identity.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)47-71
Number of pages25
JournalAfrican Studies Review
Volume52
Issue number1
Publication statusPublished - 1 Apr 2009

Bibliographical note

© 2009 Cambridge University Press

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