FGM/C: which spaces for a critical anthropology? Dialogues, resistances and new opportunities

Michela Fusaschi (1) , Giovanna Cavatorta (1)

1 ROMA TRE - Università degli Studi Roma Tre = Roma Tre University

Premise The subject/problem of the so-called Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) became a public issue in Italy only at the end of the 1990's, for the following reasons: an historical one, due to the silence on a colonial past which was different from that of other European countries; a situational one, that is a structural and cultural delay in facing social diversity and, in particular, the social transformations produced by migrations; a third reason, that we call opportunity/opportunism, ascribable to the political in-strumentalization of the patterns of social citizenship for migrants, namely forms of subaltern inclusion. At the time the discourse indicated a poor knowledge, the same that nowadays promotes an image of diversity full of stereotypes, the ones that reappear when immigration , Islam and Africa, are generically addressed. This is an approach which is often characterised by a high poignancy and/or paternalism, sometimes maternal-ism, which produces that effect of emotive participation which critical anthropology would define as "moral economy" (Fassin, 2009), that participates in producing, through indignation, forms of refusal and identification which orient judgments and acts, distinguishing among what is done, by what is not done and, mostly, what must not be done anymore, with a specific focus on female gender. In this way a distancing has been consolidated from a world, "their" world, represented by an always poor, ignorant and violent Africa, to exalt another one, "our" world, that of the human rights defenders, as the best possible world, despite the social complexity and the subjective situatedness of women with regard to FGM. Italy, furthermore, emphasised the question by firstly perceiving it as a health problem, and then, secondarily, as a legal one, de facto anticipating what in the European context would be handled with the three Ps: Prevention, Protection and Prosecution, that is the principles underlying the main global and national treaties. Following these considerations in our seminar, held in Rome on the 24 and 25 No-1 Michela Fusaschi wrote the first two paragraphs and the conclusion, Giovanna Cavatorta wrote the third and fourth paragraphs.

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société; Anthropologie sociale et ethnologie; Etudes sur le genre

Michela Fusaschi, Giovanna Cavatorta. FGM/C: which spaces for a critical anthropology? Dialogues, resistances and new opportunities. FGM/C: From Medicine to Critical Anthropology, 2018. ⟨hal-02274973⟩