Body, Migration, Re/constructive Surgeries: Making the Gendered Body in a Globalized World

310 Pages·2018·2.718 MB·English

by  Gabriele Griffin (editor), Malin Jordal (editor)

Body, Migration,
Re/Constructive Surgeries
Bringing together an international range of case studies and interviews with
individuals who have had genital re/construction, B ody, Migration, Re/Constructive
Surgeries explores the sociocultural meanings of clitoral re/construction following
female genital cutting (FGC), hymen reconstruction, trans and intersex bodily
interventions, and cosmetic surgery. Drawing critical attention to how decisions
around such surgeries are affected by social, economic and regulatory contexts
that change over time and across spaces, it raises questions such as:
• How are bodies genderized through surgical interventions?
• How do such interventions express cultural context?
• How do women who have experienced female genital cutting respond to
opportunities for clitoral reconstruction?
• How do female-to-male (FtM) trans people decide on how and where to
undertake body modifications?
• What roles do cultural expectations and official regulations play in how
people decide to have their bodies modified?
Suggesting that conventional gender binaries are no longer adequate to understanding
the quest for bodily interventions, this insightful volume seeks to give a greater
voice to those engaged in gender body modification. It will appeal to students
and postdoctoral researchers interested in fields such as Gender Studies, Social
Studies, Sexuality Studies and Cultural Studies.
Gabriele Griffin is Professor of Gender Research at Uppsala University, Sweden.
Malin Jordal is a Researcher at the Centre for Gender Research, Uppsala
University, Sweden .
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Body, Migration, Re/Constructive Surgeries
Making the Gendered Body in a Globalized World
Edited by Gabriele Griffin and Malin Jordal
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
sociology/series/SE0271
Body, Migration,
Re/Constructive Surgeries
Making the Gendered Body in a
Globalized World
Edited by Gabriele Griffin and
Malin Jordal
First published 2019
by Routledge
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© 2019 selection and editorial matter, Gabriele Griffin and Malin
Jordal; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Gabriele Griffin and Malin Jordal to be identified as
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ISBN: 978-0-8153-5419-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-351-13367-8 (ebk)
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Contents
List of figures viii
List of contributors ix
I ntroduction 1
GABRIELE GRIFFIN AND MALIN JORDAL
PART 1
Understanding female genital cutting and genital
reconstructive surgery 17
1 Psychosexual health after female genital mutilation/cutting
and clitoral reconstruction: what does the evidence say? 19
JASMINE ABDULCADIR
2 An analytic review of the literature on female genital
circumcision/mutilation/cutting (FGC): the Möbius strip
of body and society for women with FGC 39
GILLIAN EINSTEIN, DANIELLE JACOBSON AND JU EUN JUSTINA LEE
3 Multidisciplinary care for women affected by female genital
mutilation/cutting: findings from Belgium 63
ELS LEYE
4 Resistance to reconstruction: the cultural weight of virginity,
virility and male sexual pleasure 78
R. ELISE B. JOHANSEN
vi Contents
PART 2
Routes to reconstruction: desiring surgery 93
5 The meaning of clitoral reconstruction (CR) and female
genital cutting among immigrant women asking for CR
surgery in Sweden 95
MALIN JORDAL
6 The need for clitoral reconstruction: engaged bodies and
committed medicine 110
MICHELA VILLANI
7 Circumcising the mind, reconstructing the body:
contextualizing genital reconstructive surgery in
Burkina Faso 121
MARGARET NYARANGO AND GABRIELE GRIFFIN
8 ‘If you can afford it, you can do it’: deliberations of people
in Burkina Faso on clitoral reconstruction after female
genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) 140
ELENA JIROVSKY
PART 3
(Re)constructive surgery: dilemmas and
negotiations 157
9 Hymen reconstruction surgery in Jordan: sexual politics
and the economy of virginity 159
EBTIHAL MAHADEEN
10 Hymen reconstruction as pragmatic empowerment?
Results of a qualitative study from Tunisia 173
VERINA WILD, HINDA POULIN, CHRISTOPHER W. MCDOUGALL,
ANDREA STÖCKL AND NIKOLA BILLER-ANDORNO
11 Vagina dialogues: theorizing the ‘designer vagina’ 192
RUTH HOLLIDAY
12 Routes to gender-affirming surgery: navigation and
negotiation in times of biomedicalization 209
IWO NORD
Contents vii
13 What constitutes an in/significant organ? The vicissitudes
of juridical and medical decision-making regarding genital
surgery for intersex and trans people in Sweden 225
ERIKA ALM
PART 4
Thinking otherwise: affect, ethics and different
futures 241
14 Facing uneasiness in feminist research: the case of female
genital cutting 243
KATHY DAVIS
15 Beyond comparison: ‘African’ female genital cutting and
‘western’ body modifications 256
CAROLYN PEDWELL
16 Before the cut: rethinking genital identity 272
MARGRIT SHILDRICK AND MARIE-LOUISE HOLM
Index 287
Figures
1.1 3-D MRI reconstruction of the clitoris in three women
without (a) and with (b) FGM/C involving the excision
of the clitoris 21
1.2 Factors influencing women’s sexuality after FGM/C 22
1.3 Pre- and post-operative appearance of the clitoris in a woman
with FGM/C Type III previously defibulated 28
2.1 Möbius-strip-like integration of the biosocial with the
corporeal world 41
Contributors
Jasmine Abdulcadir is a consultant at the Department of Obstetrics and
Gynaecology, Geneva University Hospitals, and teaches at the Faculty of
Medicine, University of Geneva, Switzerland. She has also acted as a consul-
tant for the Department of Reproductive Health and Research of the World
Health Organization. Her medical and published work involves dealing with
women affected by female genital cutting and seeking clitoral reconstructive
surgery.
Erika Alm is a lecturer in Gender Studies at Goteborg University. Her research
interests are in the areas of gender, sexuality and identity, and she has worked
extensively on the meanings of intersex and trans experiences, activisms and
identities. Recent publications include ‘Negotiating the (bio)medical gaze:
Experiences of trans-specific healthcare in Sweden’ (co-authored, Social Sci-
ence and Medicine, 2017) and ‘The performative power of cultural products
in the making of gender, sexualities and transnational communities’ (co-
authored, Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research , 2016).
Nikola Biller-Andorno, Prof. Dr. med. Dr. phil., studied medicine as well as
philosophy and social sciences. She directs the Institute of Biomedical Eth-
ics and History, University of Zurich, Switzerland, a WHO Collaborating
Centre. In her work as a bioethics scholar she aims to combine analytical and
empirical work in order to explore ethical conflicts in real-world settings.
Kathy Davis is senior research fellow in the Sociology Department at the Free
University, Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. She is the author of R eshaping
the Female Body (Routledge, 1995), D ubiou s E qualities and Embodied Differences
(Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), and T he Making of Our Bodies, Ourselves: How
Feminism Travels Across Borders (Duke, 2007).
Gillian Einstein, PhD, is the Wilfred and Joyce Posluns Chair in Women’s
Brain Health and Ageing at the University of Toronto, where she is an Asso-
ciate Professor of Psychology. She studies how surgeries anywhere on the
body affect the entire body via the central nervous system, such as in chronic
pain due to female genital cutting in Somali-Canadian women, and changes