International Journal of Gender & Women's Studies

Mismatch between Interventionists’ Messages and Local Reality of Female Genital Cutting in a Kurya Society - Northern Tanzania
Polycarp Africanus

Abstract
Female genital cutting viewed as harmful, painful and traumatic practice experienced by girls and women; is also regarded as gender violent practice against women and girl child. Regardless of global and national efforts to end it, the practice has been highly celebrated amongst Kurya people in Tarime district-northern Tanzania, accounting for 85%. Focusing on how interventionists’ messages are delivered and perceived in a Kurya society, the author addresses the question of why interventions seem not to succeed at the local context. The article reveals “a dialogue of the deaf”. While the local people cannot make sense of the messages from the agents of social change and thus continue to reproduce the practice on the ground of cultural significance attached to the procedure, the latter does not take into account the local discourse when constructing intervention strategies and messages. The author shed light on the importance of understanding locally constructed meanings and beliefs through which the practice is maintained and argues that it is the interventionists who ought to be educated first about indigenous knowledge and experiences before embarking in processes of supposedly educating local people in their own local reality.

Full Text: PDF      DOI: 10.15640/ijgws.v4n2a6