A forthcoming issue of the journal Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society focuses on “Women, Gender, and Prison: National and Global Perspectives,” and includes ethnographic perspectives. Read more about it at the global.gender.current blog.
Several mainstream media sources discussed the findings of a comprehensive new assessment led by UNICEF about the practice of female genital cutting in Africa and the Middle East. The data indicate a gradual but significant decline in many countries.
Source: Economist
Teenage girls are now less likely to have been cut than older women in more than half of the 29 countries in Africa and the Middle East where the practice is concentrated. In Egypt, for example, where more women have been cut than in any other nation, survey data showed that 81 percent of 15- to 19-year-olds had undergone the practice, compared with 96 percent of women in their late 40s.
Generational change appears to be playing an important role in the decline with the difference in Egypt especially marked: only a third of teenage girls who were surveyed thought it should continue, compared with almost two-thirds of older women.
Researchers say the progress in Kenya makes sense, given efforts there to stop female genital cutting starting in the early 1900s. But they were at a loss to explain why the rate has plunged in the Central African Republic, to 24 percent in 2010 from 43 percent in the mid-1990s. Concerning the findings about the Central African Republic, The New York Times quotes Bettina Shell-Duncan, a cultural anthropology professor at the University of Washington who was a consultant on the report: “We have no idea, not even a guess, noting that researchers need to study the causes of the decline there.
• Indigenous people’s knowledge and climate change
An article on the importance of indigenous knowledge in addressing climate change in The Democratic Daily cites the work of Manuela Carneiro da Cunha, Brazilian cultural anthropologist and emeritus professor of the Department of Anthropology at Chicago University and the University of São Paulo.
She says indigenous people have an important contribution to make to knowledge about climate change, and scientists should listen to them because they are very well informed about their local climate as well as the natural world. Their knowledge, she says, is not a “treasure” of data to be stored and used when wanted by others, but a living and evolving process: “It is important to understand that traditional wisdom is not something simply transmitted from generation to generation. It is alive, and traditional and indigenous peoples are continually producing new knowledge.”
As described in the report’s introduction: “This report draws on data from more than 70 nationally representative surveys over a 20-year period and presents the most comprehensive compilation to date of statistics and analyses on FGM/C… It reviews all available DHS and MICS data, along with other nationally representative datasets with information on FGM/C, and examines differentials in prevalence according to social, economic, demographic and other characteristics.”
The report covers all 29 countries in Africa and the Middle East where FGM/C is concentrated and includes, for the first time, statistics from countries where representative survey data were lacking. It is also the first
publication to include new data collected on girls under 15 years of age, providing insights on the most recent dynamics surrounding the practice.
Importantly, as noted in the report’s introduction: “An innovative aspect of the analysis is the addition of a social norms perspective.” [Blogger’s note: This “innovative aspect’ may be at least partially thanks to cultural anthropologist, Bettina Shell-Duncan, who played a key role in the analysis and writing of the report].
According to a statement from the Canadian government, the Honorable Lynne Yelich, minister of state (foreign affairs and consular), has announced Canada’s contribution to two projects that will encourage the participation of women in the political process in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
“Women’s participation in decision-making processes is essential to ensure that democracies are truly representative of their populations … Canada will continue to support the development of women’s leadership skills and increase their active participation in elections so that more qualified women will be elected. These activities will strengthen the voice of women in emerging democracies at all levels of government.”
Canada's Ambassador to Afghanistan Attends Training Session on Leadership for Women's Rights, Oct. 1 7, 2012. Flickr/Canada in Afghanistan
“As the Middle East moves to a new era of political development, women have a great responsibility to shape the debate on how their societies will be run,” added Tami Longaberger, chair of the Arab Women’s Leadership Institute. “The Arab Women’s Leadership Institute is proud to partner with the Canadian government to increase the number of female elected officials who will contribute to this debate in Lebanon, Libya and Tunisia.”
The projects in Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen will support the development of women candidates’ electoral campaigning skills and help to expand recognition of women’s rights as these countries continue to undergo political transitions. They will contribute to Canada’s efforts and interests in promoting democratic transition and increasing the political participation of women in the MENA region.
The Los Angeles Times published an article by Rosemary Joyce, professor of anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley. She is quoted as saying: “One doesn’t have to go far afield to question the idea that marriage has always been defined the same way.”
The Huffington Post published an essay by Tom Boellstorff, professor of anthropology at the University of California at Irvine. He offers four points, the first of which echoes Joyce’s:
January 10, 2009 Chicago protest of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Flickr/Kevin Zolkiewicz
social scientists and historians have shown that many forms of marriage and kinship exist, and have existed, around the world, and heterosexual marriage itself takes many forms;
the victory is bittersweet given the Supreme Court’s finding of a key element of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional;
both the DOMA and Proposition 8 decisions were 5-4 rulings and this split represents divisions in society and suggests that heterosexism and homophobia will not disappear with these court rulings;
finally, it is important to anticipate questions about what is “normal.”
• Go directly to jail: Prison sentence for Guatemalan dictator
Official site.
Many major news media covered the sentencing of former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt to a landmark 80 years in prison for genocide and crime against humanity. ABC News quoted Victoria Sanford, a cultural anthropologist at Lehman College, City University of New York, who noted that genocidal massacres occurred before and after Rios Montt, “but the bulk of the killing took place under Rios Montt.”
Sanford has spent about 50 months in Guatemala and participated in excavations in at least eight massacre sites. Several of the articles quote Helen Mack, a noted human rights activist, and sister of Myrna Mack, who was murdered in Guatemala in 1990 for her work on behalf of indigenous human rights .
• What would Paul Farmer say?
U. of California Press
Time magazine carried an interview with medical anthropologist, medical doctor, professor, and health activist Paul Farmer, prompted by his new book, To Repair the World, a collection of his speeches including some of his commencement speeches.
The lead question is: “Are you ever tempted to tell graduates, ‘I could have saved thousands of lives with the money you spent on your degree?'”
Paul Farmer responds: “I don’t think of it that way. I think, Here’s a chance to reach out to people who probably are unaware — as I was at their age — of their privilege and to engage them in the work.” He was also interviewed on the Diane Rehm show.
“As an anthropologist and president of the American Anthropological Association (AAA), I was especially gratified to hear President Barack Obama acknowledge the discipline of anthropology and support its scientific integrity. In a speech at the 150th anniversary of the National Academy of Sciences, President Obama said:
‘And it’s not just resources. I mean, one of the things that I’ve tried to do over these last four years and will continue to do over the next four years is to make sure that we are promoting the integrity of our scientific process; that not just in the physical and life sciences, but also in fields like psychology and anthropology and economics and political science — all of which are sciences because scholars develop and test hypotheses and subject them to peer review — but in all the sciences, we’ve got to make sure that we are supporting the idea that they’re not subject to politics, that they’re not skewed by an agenda, that, as I said before, we make sure that we go where the evidence leads us. And that’s why we’ve got to keep investing in these sciences.'”
As a graduate student in cultural anthropology whose research focuses on how international, national, and Islamic law have been applied to issues of gender and sexuality in the Indonesian province of Aceh, I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to partake in the recent conference, Sexuality and Political Change: A New Training Program hosted by Sexuality Policy Watch (SPW).
The meeting took place in Rio de Janeiro from March 18-22 and brought together 17 individuals from around the world who do research on sexuality in the global south and look to link their work to movements of political and social change. Sexuality Policy Watch, a Rio and New York-based organization, serves as a global forum for researchers and activists who engage with policy debates and initiatives on sexuality, gender, sexual and reproductive rights, HIV/AIDS, and LGBT activism. This pilot program aimed to provide a forum for participants to share our research and experiences while reflecting on the intersection of theory, research, and change in the realm of genders and sexualities.
One factor that made this conference so important for me—but also challenging—was the diversity of the participants both in interests and backgrounds. Attendees came from Argentina, Trinidad and Tobago, South Africa, Brazil, India, Egypt, the Philippines, Cameroon, China, and Mexico, among others. I was one of two Americans. We ranged from current graduate students to established professors to queer activists to UN lawyers and had expertise in areas including sexual health, LGBT rights, migration, and sex work.
In forums such as this, it is always helpful as a space for knowledge sharing, but it is undoubtedly difficult to negotiate how we translate all of our local identities and nationally-bound political structures into terms and strategies that have currency at the transnational and international level. Continue reading “Reflections on the Sexuality Policy Watch conference”→
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