Female Genital Cutting and African Women's Migration to Canada: Toward a Postcolonial Feminist Decolonizing Methodology
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University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Graduate Studies The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020-11-23 Female Genital Cutting and African Women's Migration to Canada: Toward a Postcolonial Feminist Decolonizing Methodology Werunga, Jane Nasipwondi Werunga, J. N. (2020). Female Genital Cutting and African Women's Migration to Canada: Toward a Postcolonial Feminist Decolonizing Methodology (Unpublished doctoral thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. http://hdl.handle.net/1880/112782 doctoral thesis University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY Female Genital Cutting and African Women's Migration to Canada: Toward a Postcolonial Feminist Decolonizing Methodology by Jane Nasipwondi Werunga A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN NURSING CALGARY, ALBERTA NOVEMBER, 2020 © Jane Nasipwondi Werunga 2020 Abstract The discourse on the cultural practice of FGC has captured a lot of attention over the last several decades, and with international migration propelling what was once a private cultural practice onto the global stage, FGC has become a fixture in the international human rights and global health arenas. FGC is a sensitive topic and the debates around it remain politically and culturally contentious. A lot of resources have been poured into eradication endeavors with multiple multinational organizations including the WHO spearheading the effort, the non-negotiable endpoint being the wellbeing, safety, and security of young girls and women. The purpose of this qualitative interpretive description study informed by decolonizing perspectives was to critically examine how immigrant and refugee women who have experienced FGC make sense of and explain the practice for themselves and for younger generations; and to explore the sociopolitical contexts sustaining and perpetuating FGC in the lives of affected younger and older women including their perceptions of as well as interactions with health services in diasporic locations. Participants’ understandings and agency-in-practice were analyzed through the themes of Experiencing, Explaining, Migrating, and Mitigating FGC. A decolonizing interpretation of research findings surfaced the intersections of social, political, economic, and cultural barriers manifesting through racialized and gendered axes of exclusion and marginalization to affect the health and wellbeing of FGC-affected immigrant and refugee women in a globalized milieu. This study highlights the importance of historical and cultural contexts in understanding and researching FGC-affected women as well as the relevance of decolonizing universal norms including in researcH, in order to effectively do this. This study offers an ii alternative way of conceptualizing FGC in a transnational setting and has implications for nursing research, health services, nursing education, as well as leadership and policy. Immigrant and refugee women affected by FGC deserve equitable, socially just, culturally responsive, and trauma-informed health services. This is in keeping with the nursing mandate of fostering health equity and social justice for all individuals. This study opens avenues for considering alternative ways of conceptualizing FGC and in doing so lives up to the interpretive description design logic. Keywords: female genital mutilation/cutting, FGM/C, migration, African, immigrant women, refugees. iii Acknowledgements I would like to convey my gratitude to everyone who supported and guided me throughout this process. It did take a village. I am eternally grateful to the African women who selflessly volunteered to share their stories with me for this study. I applaud your bravery and resilience. I hear you. I see you. You deserve to tell your own stories and to be heard. Words cannot adequately express the gratitude I have for my thesis advisor and supervisory committee members. Dr. Carol Ewashen, my chair, thank you for your gentle guidance and positive outlook, for your faith in me even during times when I could not find any reason to believe in myself, for your patience with me through challenges and frustrations, for the engaging critical conversations and book club discussions, for the uplifting talks, for sticking it out with me. For all that and more, I thank you. Dr. Sheryl Reimer-Kirkham, your presence on my supervisory committee has been invaluable. Thank you for seeing the potential in me, for nurturing my interest in critical theories through the guided study methodology course, for pushing me to think outside the box. Your methodological expertise has been invaluable to my work. In addition to helping with the formulation of this thesis, you have also helped guide my research interests – I am eternally grateful to you. Dr. Andrew Estefan, I cannot thank you enough for your continuous involvement with my work, your gentle yet critical analytical feedback has helped me to be a better, more careful researcher. Thank you for valuing my work, and for your editorial feedback. My heartfelt thanks go to my family. To my mom – Mayi, I have felt your love and prayers through the years and want to thank you for being our family’s anchor and our iv home. Thank you for sharing your stories and the stories of our ancestors with me. To my brother Martin for your love and unwavering support through the years, asante mwenetu. To my sister Dr. Robai who quite literally refused to let me quit, thank you for being a positive role model for me, for being my sounding board, and for being an all-around awesome big sis – asante sana. To my brilliant nephews Collins, Mitchell, Jeffrey, and Martin Jr, I love you guys, you are going places. To my niece Nabwire, go get them little mama! The future is female! Special thanks to my friends in Canada and the USA who were there for me and believed in me. Dr. Dada and family, thank you for your support and prayers and for being my family in Canada. Barikiwa sana. To everyone at the University of Calgary who made this process a little easier for me, thank you. I appreciate the scholarships and awards that I received through the Nursing Faculty and the Faculty of Graduate Studies at the University of Calgary. v Dedication To my mom, Khakasa Werunga ~ Thank you Mayi, for everything. I honour you along with Mayi Wakhalakwa, and all the kukhus who eternally watch over us. And to my late dad, Musamali Werunga (Prof) ~ Orioo sana papa. You did good baba. I know that somewhere out there, you are smiling. vi Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. ii Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... iv Dedication ......................................................................................................................... vi Table of Contents ............................................................................................................ vii List of Tables .................................................................................................................... xi List of Figures .................................................................................................................. xii List of Abbreviations ..................................................................................................... xiii Epigraph ......................................................................................................................... xiv Chapter 1 Introduction .....................................................................................................1 Orienting to the ResearcH ................................................................................................3 Research Questions ..........................................................................................................6 Clarifying the Theoretical Forestructure ..........................................................................6 Critical Theoretical Perspectives for Researching FGC ..................................................7 Postcolonialism ...........................................................................................................8 Postcolonial Feminism ...............................................................................................9 Africana Feminism ...................................................................................................10 Black Feminism ........................................................................................................11 Womanism ................................................................................................................11 Africana Womanism .................................................................................................12 African Feminism .....................................................................................................12 Situating Self in the Study .............................................................................................14