Making the Mark: Gender, Identity, and Genital Cutting (Volume 93)

by Miroslava Prazak

Why do female genital cutting practices persist? How does circumcision affect the rights of girls in a culture where initiation forms the lynchpin of the ritual cycle at the core of defining gender, identity, and social and political status? In Making the Mark, Miroslava Prazak follows the practice of female circumcision through the lives and activities of community members in a rural Kenyan farming society as they decide whether or not to participate in the tradition. In an ethnography twenty years in the making, Prazak weaves multiple Kuria perspectives―those of girls, boys, family members, circumcisers, political and religious leaders―into a riveting account. Though many books have been published on the topic of genital cutting, this is one of the few ethnographies to give voice to evolving perspectives of practitioners, especially through a period of intense anticutting campaigning on the part of international NGOs, local activists, and donor organizations. Prazak also examines the cultural challenges that complicate the human-rights anti-FGM stance. Set in the rolling hills of southwestern Kenya, Making the Mark examines the influences that shape and change female genital cutting over time, presenting a rich mosaic of the voices contributing to the debate over this life-altering ritual.

332 pages, Hardcover

Published September 15, 2016

Reviews

[DW Rowlands · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting and disturbing book. It forced me to think more about the cultural contexts of genital mutilation traditions, and the degree to which the issue isn't so much the cutting itself as the broader lack of autonomy that children and young adults in many cultures have. Not just autonomy with respect to their parents, but with respect to society more broadly. Prazak details how even when children and their parents were opposed in theory to female circumcision, cultural pressures made it essentially impossible to follow any other path, given the limited life trajectories actually available to girls.

[Possum P · Rating 2 out of 5]

I appreciated the author's consistent direction toward funding and donors. I feel like there's a profit motive and a very intentional misdirection here. I was reminded of Federici's Caliban and the Witch and her descriptions of how rape and child abuse were institutionalized in Europe and the Americas respectively as mechanisms of dividing exploited people along gendered lines. This preoccupation with "girls" seems to be another form of that.

[CJ Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing, unbiased ethnographic research. Easily relevant to me as I'm currently interning with an end FGM/C grassroots CBO in the very area Prazak did research in for 20+ years.