Created by God: How Somalis in Swedish Exile Reassess the Practice of Female Circumcision Johnsdotter Carlbom, Sara 2002 Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Johnsdotter Carlbom, S. (2002). Created by God: How Somalis in Swedish Exile Reassess the Practice of Female Circumcision. Department of Sociology, Lund University. 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LUND UNIVERSITY PO Box 117 221 00 Lund +46 46-222 00 00 Sara Johnsdotter Created by God How Somalis in Swedish Exile Reassess the Practice of Female Circumcision 2002 Doctoral dissertation Department of Social Anthropology Lund University, Sweden Lund Monographs in Social Anthropology 10 Can be ordered from [email protected] 1 Contents Acknowledgements 11 1 Discourse versus discourse 15 1.1 Introduction 15 1.2 Female circumcision as a strategy 17 1.3 The absence of a Somali public sphere 18 1.4 Swedish moral panic 19 1.5 Female circumcision as a field of expertise 21 1.6 Organisation of the thesis 22 2 Fieldwork among Somalis 25 2.1 Fieldwork in Rosengård 25 2.2 A seminar, a course on female circumcision – and a conflict 26 2.3 Transethnic research group 27 2.4 The empirical data 28 2.5 Reliability 29 3 Somalis in exile 33 3.1 The background of the situation in Somalia 33 3.2 Exile – and repatriation? 35 3.3 Clan community: security and control 36 3.4 Marriage and family: challenged gender roles 40 3.5 Concluding commentary 46 4 Female circumcision as a field of study 47 4.1 Definitions and classifications 48 4.2 Physical and psychic consequences 49 4.3 Female circumcision and sexuality 52 4.3.1 Western discourse 52 4.3.2 Studies including clitoridectomised women 54 4.3.3 Studies including infibulated women 56 4.4 Historical background 61 4.5 Islam and female circumcision 63 4.6 Occurrences of female circumcision among Somalis in exile 70 2 4.7 Female circumcision in Somalia 73 4.8 Motives for circumcising girls in Somalia 76 4.9 Explanatory models 78 4.9.1 Analyses on symbolism 78 Sex and gender 78 Virginity 80 Infibulation 81 Defibulation 82 4.9.2 Approaches focusing on ethnic, socio-economic and psychological aspects 87 Ethnicity 87 Social status and economic security 90 Psychological revenge 91 4.9.3 Feminist perspectives 93 Radical feminism 93 The radical feminist perspective: a hegemonic understanding 95 Criticism on the radical feminist perspective 98 4.9.4 Mackie’s model of convention 101 4.10 Concluding commentary 104 5 Reassessing female circumcision 107 5.1 Attitudes toward pharaonic circumcision 108 5.2 Attitudes toward sunnah circumcision 112 5.3 ‘A good girl’: the importance of chastity 119 5.4 The worst thing possible: wacal, a child without father 124 5.5 Reflection upon what was once ’natural’ 128 6.5 Reflection upon Islam and female circumcision 132 5.7 Views of the Swedish law on female circumcision 136 6 The role of the men 143 6.1 Women about men, virginity and female circumcision 143 6.2 Pharaonic circumcision and male sexual pleasure 148 6.3 Men as fathers and husbands 151 7 Instead of female circumcision 157 7.1 Surmises about the future 158 7.2 Handling a deviant moral system 162 7.3 Dialogue, social control, education and trust 165 7.4 Chaste conduct as a proof of virginity 170 7.5 Strategies for the future 173 3 8 Culturalism and cultural change 177 8.1 ‘They do it because it is their culture’: our era’s concept of race 177 8.2 A clash with empirical findings 180 9 A case of moral panic: ‘The Forgotten Girls’ 189 9.1 The media launch 190 9.2 The aftermath: indicators of a moral panic displayed 193 10 The politics of female circumcision 203 10.1 A political exploitation 203 10.1.1 The actors in the field 204 10.1.2 The impossibility of defence from allegations 207 10.3 A moral discourse 208 10.3.1 Moral and medical statements intertwined 208 10.3.2 Anthropology and moral models 212 10.3.3 Symbolic sunnah: a political minefield 214 10.3.4 Lining up among the righteous 216 10.4 A voyeuristic bent 217 10.4.1 The theme of the exotic evil 218 10.4.2 The theme of the exotic mutilated genitals 220 10.5 Concluding commentary 223 11 Summary and conclusions 225 Hordhac / Summary in Somali 233 Sammanfattning / Summary in Swedish 245 References 261 Appendix: ‘The Forgotten Girls’ 279 A. The narrative 279 B. The techniques 285 C. Shortcomings 289 C1. Factual errors 289 C2. The frailties of the argument 293 4 Acknowledgements As with most doctoral theses, the end product is a result of many persons’ efforts and support in various forms. First and foremost, my warmest thanks go to Steven Sampson, my brutal but humorous tutor during five years. He has been an excellent supervisor: dedicated, sharp and always straight to the point. The fallacies remaining in the thesis are probably those I never corrected against his advice. Hans Westerlund and Peter Parker have been special companions in discussions and academic adventures since we were undergraduate students. I owe much to them and our multidisciplinary seminar Purgatorium, where harsh critique of the seminar participants’ texts was commanded. Their interest and help with this thesis have been invaluable. At the Lund Department of Social Anthropology two teachers awakened my fascination with anthropology many years ago: Johnny Persson and Melcher Ek strömer. Both have been very helpful and encouraging through the years. Being a doctoral student at the Lund Department of Social Anthropology was not always easy, but it was never boring. In the long run challenging resistance from higher levels in the hierarchy is more gratifying than a patronising attitude. I thank Professor Jonathan Friedman and Professor Kajsa Ekholm Friedman for all the stimulating debates during the years. Thanks to Steven and Jonathan also for teaching me that every actor’s position, no matter how reprehensible or contemptible in the eye of the public, can also be comprehensible. A circle of importance to me was the Displacement seminar, led by Marita Eastmond and Karin Norman from the departments of Social Anthropology in Gothenburg resp. Stockholm. In this seminar I got the opportunity to reflect upon migration issues through other anthropologists’ works, and also the possibility to socialise with anthropologists from other parts of Sweden. As the Department of Social Anthropology in Lund lodges with the Department of Sociology, many of my contacts have been with sociologists in the house, who have offered both social and academic sup port. Thanks to Katarina Jacobsson, David Wästerfors, Filippa Säwe and Magnus Lundberg among others. I am also grateful to Frans Oddner for saying exactly the right encouraging things at a critical moment, and to Helena Ledje who has been a stimulating discussion partner during many years. The anthropologist Katarina Sjöberg has also been very helpful and encouraging. Otti Bovide, co-ordinator of the municipal program in Malmö Sexuell hälsa (Sexual Health), and Inger Bjermo, midwife in Malmö, were among those who once 5 initiated a network among officials for preventive work against female circumcision in Malmö. They introduced me to this field at a point when I did not know anything about this practice, and I am grateful to them for our stimulating co- operation through the years. Piret Esken at the Gothenburg Project was also a very helpful guide into this field. My warm thanks to Ali Elmi in Malmö for giving insightful comments on parts of a preliminary draft and for his collaboration in one of the studies included in this thesis. I am grateful to Ali Yassin for translating the summary into Somali in an incredibly short time. Many thanks to Jonas Svensson at the Department of Islamology at Lund University, for going through a draft of the section about Islam and female circumcision, and for his critical comments. Cecilia Hansson at the Department of Sociology in Lund has proof-read the manuscript and given excellent suggestions. The remaining linguistic errors are probably a result of my inability to leave the text be. R. Elise B. Johansen, anthropologist in Oslo and promoter of the FOKO network (gathering Nordic researchers in the field of female circumcision), has been an excellent part in a continual discussion about Somalis in Sweden and Norway, and the issue of female circumcision. Many of the ideas of this thesis were born when I was forced to reflect upon differences and similarities comparing the situation in Sweden and Norway. I owe her and her comprehensive e-mails a great deal. Lisen Dellenborg, anthropologist in Gothenburg, is another participant of FOKO who has been important to me in the process of thesis writing.