ABSTRACT
The study examines knowledge construction on female genital cutting (FGC) and
notions of womanhood and the resultant discourses by the Maasai community in
Kajiado, Kenya. There has been a global upsurge in anti-FGC interventions by the
international community, feminist movements, national governments, and NGOs
in the last three decades which have described FGC as a barbaric practice that
violates the health and human rights of docile and helpless women and girls.
Kajiado has been a recipient of those interventions but reduction in prevalence of
FGC has been slow in the community. This study interrogates how the Maasai
construct FGC and womanhood. The study utilized qualitative methods in data
collection and analysis: 34 in-depth interviews of men and women above 18 years
of age and three focus group discussions of naturally occurring women‘s groups.
Overall, the study reveals a multiplicity of discourses on FGC in the community.
Five of these are steeped in Maasai culture and include the supernatural, social
transition, sexual morality, economic benefit and social integration discourses.
The other five are influenced by the anti-FGC campaign messages and other
modern ‗alternative‘ concepts and include the medical, modernistic, sexual
fulfilment, bodily integrity discourse, and the illegality discourses. Another key
finding of the study is that although the Maasai demonstrate familiarity with the
anti-FGC arguments, they have not owned those arguments as it is demonstrated
by their regular use of the phrase ―they say‖ in their reference to those arguments.
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The older women‘s categorical rejection of claims in those arguments that FGC
results in loss of sex drive, excessive bleeding, difficult child birth and death
clearly shows that exposure to the anti-FGC arguments does not necessarily
convince targets of the interventions. The study also found out that Maasai
women are not passive victims of patriarchy and tradition but are rather
organizing themselves into groups called „chamas‟ from which they are clearly
prioritizing their agency through the raising of independent incomes, access to
education and skills training for themselves and their daughters to free themselves
from subservience to men, culture and confinement to the domestic sphere.
Clearly, FGC is not considered by Maasai women as big a problem as lack of
economic independence and education. Further, the assumed equivalence of
agency of women with rejection of FGC is undermined by the fact that young
educated women are not automatically renouncing FGC, some are actually
demanding it. Based on these findings the study recommends an all-inclusive
community engagement strategy by the change agents that will clearly empower
the Maasai people to construct development in their own terms by naming their
major concerns and identifying culture-specific ways to address those concerns.
In so doing, the community will be encouraged to get more involved in their own
culture change and development. This study contributes to the scarce literature on
knowledge construction on female genital cutting, one of the most hotly debated
issues regarding African women, by practicing communities. By highlighting the
intricacies of the contexts within which this construction is done, these findings
rend support to the social constructionist perspectives.
KIMANI, R (2021). ‘ALTERNATIVE’ FEMALE GENITAL CUTTING DISCOURSES? A STUDY OF THE MAASAI OF KAJIADO, KENYA. Afribary. Retrieved from https://tracking.afribary.com/works/alternative-female-genital-cutting-discourses-a-study-of-the-maasai-of-kajiado-kenya
KIMANI, ROSEMARY "‘ALTERNATIVE’ FEMALE GENITAL CUTTING DISCOURSES? A STUDY OF THE MAASAI OF KAJIADO, KENYA" Afribary. Afribary, 30 Mar. 2021, https://tracking.afribary.com/works/alternative-female-genital-cutting-discourses-a-study-of-the-maasai-of-kajiado-kenya. Accessed 22 Nov. 2024.
KIMANI, ROSEMARY . "‘ALTERNATIVE’ FEMALE GENITAL CUTTING DISCOURSES? A STUDY OF THE MAASAI OF KAJIADO, KENYA". Afribary, Afribary, 30 Mar. 2021. Web. 22 Nov. 2024. < https://tracking.afribary.com/works/alternative-female-genital-cutting-discourses-a-study-of-the-maasai-of-kajiado-kenya >.
KIMANI, ROSEMARY . "‘ALTERNATIVE’ FEMALE GENITAL CUTTING DISCOURSES? A STUDY OF THE MAASAI OF KAJIADO, KENYA" Afribary (2021). Accessed November 22, 2024. https://tracking.afribary.com/works/alternative-female-genital-cutting-discourses-a-study-of-the-maasai-of-kajiado-kenya