Multiplicity and Mess: The Movement to End Female Genital Mutilation in Somaliland

Abstract

The grassroots movement to end female genital mutilation (FGM) in Somaliland has been active since the 1970s. Despite this, Somaliland has one of the highest FGM prevalence rates in the world – at 99 per cent. As a non-recognised, de-facto state, Somaliland is a unique case study for exploring the relationship between a local grassroots-led movement to end FGM (made up of NGO workers, individual activists and advocates, medical practitioners, government employees and community leaders) and the global movement to end FGM (led by international NGOs, UN bodies, Western donor organisations and international activists). The global movement arguably has undue and disproportionate influence in shaping end FGM work and discourse in Somaliland due to the country’s lack of recognition as an independent state. This discourse, informed by Western feminisms, works to construct FGM as a single and coherent practice, and therefore possible to address with uniform approaches. The Somalilander movement implicitly challenges this discourse by giving space to multiple understandings and practices that co-exist simultaneously – in contravention of prescribed Western feminist wisdom about how the end FGM movement ‘should’ be enacted. This thesis argues that African feminisms provide the most appropriate lens for understanding this phenomenon because they are grounded in a resistance against the hegemony of Western feminisms and the legacy that these colonial discourses have within African culture.