Circumcising Circumcision: Renegotiating Beliefs and Practices among Somali Women in Johannesburg and Nairobi

Abstract

Female circumcision among Somalis is a deeply personal and subjective practice, framed within traditional norms and cultural practices, but negotiated within contemporary realities to produce a set of processes and practices that are nuanced, differentiated, and undergoing change. Based on ethnographic research among Somali women in Johannesburg and Nairobi, we argue that the context of forced migration provides women with opportunities to renegotiate and reinvent what female circumcision means to them. The complex, subjective, and diverse perceptions and experiences of circumcision as embedded processes, within the context of migration, we argue has been overlooked in the literature, which has tended to be framed within a normative discourse concerned with the medical effects of the practice, or in anthropological studies, counter to the normative discourse based on personal narratives.

Keywords:

• female circumcision
• female genital modification/mutilation
• Johannesburg
• Nairobi
• Somali women

Notes

1. Sunna refers to traditions carried out or supported by the Prophet Mohamed.

2. A surgical incision to increase the size of the vaginal opening, intended to ease the delivery of the baby.

3. When a circumcision scar is re-sewn, normally to the same extent it was at the initial circumcision. Some men and women in Eastleigh referred to this as “becoming a virgin again.”

4. Immediate families and extended kin played a very important role in marital relationships; unfortunately there is insufficient space to elaborate on the topic in this article.

5. Due to high rates of divorce and remarriage, it was quite common to find children living within a family who only shared one parent. Although not always the case, young children were more likely to live with their mother, while older children often lived with their father. Forced migration had severely disrupted such norms.

6. All names have been changed to protect anonymity.

7. For example, a straightforward vaginal delivery normally cost in excess of 13000 KES, while a caesarean section cost at least five times that. In context, the rent for a single room, which was typical accommodation for a family, or a group of two to four single men, or perhaps one to three women living with their children cost around 4000 KES per month.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Zaheera Jinnah

Zaheera Jinnah, PhD, is an anthropologist and researcher at the African Centre for Migration and Society at Wits University, South Africa. Her doctoral work focused on the concept and forms of agency amongst Somali women in Johannesburg. She is joint coordinator of the multiyear research and policy influencing project on labor migration in South Africa, MiWORC.

Lucy Lowe

Lucy Lowe is a teaching fellow in the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh, Scotland.