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A Qualitative Study on Female Genital Cutting Among Kurdish-Norwegians

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A Qualitative Study on Female Genital Cutting Among Kurdish-Norwegians A qualitative study on female genital cutting among Kurdish-Norwegians By Ingvild Bergom Lunde Institute of Health and Society, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies 2020 Thesis submitted to the University of Oslo for the Degree of Philosophiae Doctor (PhD) © Ingvild Bergom Lunde, 2020 Series of dissertations submitted to the Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo ISBN 978-82-8377-650-8 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission. Cover: Hanne Baadsgaard Utigard. Print production: Reprosentralen, University of Oslo. Abstract In Norway, there has been little focus on female genital cutting (FGC) among Kurds, and there has been no previous research in this field. This is the case despite that there has been international focus on FGC in Kurdistan since around 2004 through activism, media reports, and research, and despite Kurds being one of the largest Norwegian migrant populations that come from a region where FGC is well documented through national population-based surveys. Based on fieldwork that explored perceptions of and experiences with FGC among Kurds in Norway, this doctoral thesis aims to contribute with knowledge of FGC concerning the Kurdish population. The doctoral thesis draws on fieldwork and qualitative interviews with Kurdish women and men born in either Iran or Iraq, and who have lived in Norway for six years or more. One of the main findings in the thesis is that how Kurdish-Norwegians comprehended, talked about, and understood FGC, was often associated with condemnation and silencing. Three ways in which condemnation and silencing of FGC occurred are presented in the three articles that jointly form this doctoral thesis. Article I describes how challenging the research participants found it to address FGC as a practice related to them as Kurds. The article argues that FGC can be understood as a ‘difficult’ characteristic in Kurdish national identity construction, and shows how study participants’ views entail a negotiation between modern and traditional aspects of national identity. The article makes use of theories on management of difficult characteristics in national identity construction to argue that if Kurdish women’s struggle for liberation was emphasised, FGC could be talked about in Norwegian public as a Kurdish challenge that needed to be rejected. Even though communicating FGC in such a matter may risk suggesting a spoiled Kurdish national identity, and even though conservative and traditional forces that may promote FGC are a challenge to Kurdish women’s struggle, the public condemnation of FGC can be interpreted as a way of framing Kurdish national aspirations as grounded in support for human rights and gender equality. Article II explores how FGC was a silenced topic between mothers and daughters, and between men and women. These silences were broken when FGC was talked about as 1 something that needed to be rejected. The main reasons that study participants expressed for rejecting FGC was their support for women’s rights and the negative ways in which they perceived FGC to affect female sexuality. This rejection of FGC, was a potential way in which silences of FGC could be broken, particularly between husbands and wives, through discussing how FGC may have affected their sexual relations. By the use of theories on migrant women’s sexual agency and embodiments, the article argues that silencing around FGC in close relationships can be interpreted both as a sign of oppression and as a sign of empowerment. Even though circumcised women may be stigmatised, the stigmatisation can lead to the negotiation of a more assertive female sexuality. Article III explores how research participants often preferred to talk about male circumcision (MC) instead of FGC. Linked to this was confusion about whether ‘Kurdish FGC’ was comparable to ‘Somali FGC’ (infibulation), or whether it was rather more similar to ritual circumcision of boys. The article makes use of theories on the mapping of controversies and the ‘slippery-slope’ argument, to argue that Norwegian political reluctance to treat male circumcision and FGC in the same way may change the meaning of ritual boy circumcision, which may result in parents deciding not to circumcise their sons. This doctoral thesis demonstrates how by presenting modern and tolerant values, such as a rejection of boy circumcision, approval of female sexual pleasure and desire, and support for the empowerment of boys, girls, men, and women, Kurdish-Norwegians are in many ways aligning subjective experiences and understandings towards norms of gender equality and human rights in Norway. The concept of ‘homo-nationalism’ within theories on sexual citizenship focuses on how national-border making is closely related to modernity and tolerance, where claims about others’ backwardness regarding sexuality, such as intolerance of lesbian and gay identity politics, are used to authenticate present-day neo-colonial practices through cultural ‘othering’. The global South has often been understood as underdeveloped and in need of being developed through, for example, cultural, economic, and political modernisation processes. As more recent theories argue, however, perspectives from the global South can also be understood as providing insights into the world as a whole. Through reflecting on the 2 insights into FGC gained from a group of people who have some experience from the ‘global South’ (Kurdish-Norwegians), and who reside in the ‘global North’ (Norway), it can be observed that the pre-dominant understanding of FGC as ‘backwards’ and ‘traditional’ is what is under negotiations by Kurdish-Norwegians. FGC scholarship has explored how hegemonic constructions of FGC are hypocritical due to anatomic overlaps with genital cutting practices in the Global North such as ritual boy circumcision. A recent argument within this scholarship is that the comparing and contrasting FGC with ‘Western’ genital cutting practices tends to emphasise the implications of these practices for sex/gender and sexuality over other embodiments of the practices, such as ethnicity, history, cultural difference, and nation. It is here that the national portrayal of Kurdish women as both marginalised victims and active female combatants may provide new insights of what is ‘female’ and ‘male’. This doctoral thesis suggests that future research should explore how a young generation of Kurds together with Kurdish women’s movements, may problematise FGC as a symbol of a global health challenge that inhibits the empowerment of girls and women. Exploring views on male circumcision may give fruitful insights to such as problematisation. 3 Acknowledgements I hope that those that contributed to this doctoral thesis over the past few years appreciate how they in their own way have contributed to saving my world. To those who participated in this study. Thank you for openly and engagingly sharing your views on a very politicised and contested topic, for inviting me to your homes and events. I wish I could name you, but I have promised not to. Without you this doctoral thesis would simply not have been. To my supervisors. Mona-Iren Hauge: Your mix of professionalism and kindness has not only helped me understand research and the topic FGC, but also how to balance life and academia. Mette Sagbakken: you have guided me in the academic world since my master thesis in 2010! Although frustrating at times, I have always trusted and appreciated that you will push me just a little further to make me a better researcher. Johanne Sundby: For believing in me, being selfless and engaged, and giving me encouraging advice whenever and wherever I need them. The Norwegian national competence research team on female genital mutilation (2014- 2016). R Elise B Johansen who has been the co-author and appointed project leader; thank you for sharing your 25 years+ expertise with research and work in the FGC field in Norway and globally. Thank you to Inger-Lise Lien for lending me some of your brilliant brain cells when I have (and have not) asked. To Mai Ziyada, for our fruitful discussions, and your interest in both medicine and social sciences. Thank you to the funders of the doctoral thesis. The Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress hired me and paid my salary. A special thank you also to Mia Myhre and Nina Rundgren for unquestionable flexibility to work part-time in different positions towards the end of the doctoral work. The EXCEL-scholarship mobility programme at the University of Oslo funded a research stay in Ethiopia which enabled me to write major parts of the thesis in spring 2019. To my colleagues, some of you who are good friends. Several have developed my work by discussing ideas and/or read written drafts: Lisa Govasli Nilsen, Yngvil Grøvdal, Randi Saur, Margunn Bjørnholt, Anja Kruse, Espen Gran, Kristin Engh Førde, Monika Rosten, Vilde Reichelt, Cecilie Knagenhjelm Hertzberg, Jeroen Rijnders, Eira Ebbs, Håvard Krokå Saunes, Maria Hernandez, Eirin Mo Danielsen, Rania Maktabi, Jon Magnus Haga, Kåre Moen, Linda Holen Moen, Mats Fernando Liland, Mari Kvam, Anna Wahlberg, Brian Earp, and Ashley Taylor. Other colleagues have helped with coffee, lunch, talk, IT, or administration: Tore Indregard, Leobardo Ramirez, Ida Håbrekke, Kine Lundhagen Hesselroth, Randi Hagen Eriksrud, Anne Lie Andreassen, Inger Elise Birkeland, Lise Stene, Helene Flood Aakvaag, Marianne Opaas, Helene Langsether, Rolf Moe-Nilssen, Sabreen Selvik, Heidi Elisabeth Sandnes, Anna Birgitte Mørch, Runhild Grønlie. 4 Thank you to my friends and family. Several have helped me see that there is more to life than a PhD, even an after-PhD life: Anna Mizcka, Alina Dinu, Cornelia Koppang Henriksen, Ida Lagos Andersen, Erlend Sørmo, Maren Ringstad, Julia Vendelboe Sogn, Gunnhildur Arnadottir, Joakim Solhaug, Knut Evjen, Ane Trygadottir, Shirin Rebekka Dybsjord, Silje Botten Bergom, Emma With, Kari With, Tor Hatlevik, Vegard Bergom Lunde, Magali Barcia, Inger-Marie Lunde, and Katrine Kjær.
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