<p>The aim of this thesis is to conduct an ethnographic analysis of the traditional male circumcision intervention by government, through the Application of Health Standards<br /> in Traditional Circumcision Act, No 6 of 2001, of the Eastern Cape. More specifically, the thesis seeks to understand how different stakeholders respond to this intervention and what steps they take to indicate their responses.</p>

Following the First World War, colonial policy in West Africa underwent a transition as British administrators began to adopt indirect rule reforms to help usher in peasant-driven agricultural development in Northern Ghana. This thesis addresses the impact of these important policy changes on women and children through a study of local colonial and indigenous responses to four bodily practices: female circumcision, human trafficking (female pawning and illicit adoption), nudity and prostitution. Although much has been written about colonial and post-independence legislation of the female body, especially the female circumcision controversy in Kenya and prostitution in the mines and cities of east and southern Africa, few historical studies have fully considered the role of West African development doctrine, or the importance of ‘tradition’ and ‘community’, in colonial policies affecting women and children in Northern Ghana. Through a Parliamentary inquiry in 1930, West African departments came to reluctantly engage with questions of women and children’s status. Collectively, they decided that a gradualist path which sought to preserve community or ‘tribal’ cohesion was preferable to legislation promoting individual rights and civil society. This thesis situates this reluctance to introduce potentially destabilizing legislation in the context of development doctrine in northern Ghana. This thesis focusses on the north-eastern borderland corridor of northern Ghana where in the 1930s anthropologists and district officials investigated questions of female circumcision and as a solution to Parliamentary inquiry, sought to encourage a milder form practiced in infancy, rather than adolescence. The refusal to legislate reflected West African officials’ privileging of ‘community’ over the ‘individual’ and was repeated in their responses to ‘undesirable practices’, including nudity, pawning, and in post-independence times, illicit adoption and prostitution. In exploring state officials’ handling of these practices in a gradualist manner, this thesis illuminates the connections between development doctrine and the role of the male colonial gaze in managing undesirable practices in north-eastern Ghana, West Africa. / Thesis (Ph.D, History) -- Queen's University, 2014-04-03 14:33:00.037

<p>The aim of this thesis is to conduct an ethnographic analysis of the traditional male circumcision intervention by government, through the Application of Health Standards<br /> in Traditional Circumcision Act, No 6 of 2001, of the Eastern Cape. More specifically, the thesis seeks to understand how different stakeholders respond to this intervention and what steps they take to indicate their responses.</p>

This qualitative research study explores female circumcision within the Canadian community perspective. / Issues examined in the literature review include: the historical background of the practice, its cultural and religious implications, its effects on health, existing social pressures to continue or discontinue the practice and the subjective constructions of majority and minority identities, perspectives and interactions in Canada's multicultural society. / For the purposes of this study majority/minority relations are explored in terms of the interactions between an immigrant community from a FC practicing country and the mainstream community in Canada. The Somali community has been chosen for this case study as the one best known to the author and as one in whose country of origin available statistics indicate a 98% prevalence rate of FC. Canadian mainstream reactions to this practice are analyzed through media reporting and statements from Somalis in Canada describing their interactions with the mainstream community on this issue. / Members of the Somali community in Montreal, Quebec and Ottawa, Ontario were interviewed in order to cover as wide an area as possible, including difference in provinces. The following six themes were chosen after data analysis: the Effects of FC on Health, the Cultural Orientation of FC, Religious Beliefs Regarding FC, Social Pressures, A Sense of Differentness and Efforts to Discourage the Practice of FC. These themes are discussed with special attention being paid to 'differentness' and the mechanisms or coping skills developed to deal with this complex social phenomenon which involves opposing values, beliefs and perceptions. / In its final section, the study examines the social work implications of the findings which address intercultural fears, anxieties and the dynamics of power involved in the way the FC issue has been addressed in Canada. / Practice, program and policy recommendations with regard to discouraging FC practice are made at the end of the thesis. / The study concludes with the observation that the debate around FC in Canada is much wider than the issue itself and that the practice has been sensationalized in a manner which has emphasized perceptions of differentness which exist in our society. No constructive dialogue will be possible around this issue until the issue of differentness is addressed, and mutual fears and anxieties evoked by the perception of differentness are dealt with in a sensitive manner, in both immigrant and mainstream communities.

This thesis used female genital mutilation as a lens through which the effectiveness of the current laws aimed at protecting women and girls can be explored.

Proefschrift--Leyden. / With summaries in English and Indonesian.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, June, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 266-279)

Thesis (D.Mus.)-University of Pretoria, 2005. / Abstract in English. Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Magister Legum - LLM / This thesis used female genital mutilation as a lens through which the effectiveness of the current laws aimed at protecting women and girls can be explored. / South Africa

Masters of Art / The aim of this thesis is to conduct an ethnographic analysis of the traditional male circumcision intervention by government, through the Application of Health Standards in Traditional Circumcision Act, No 6 of 2001, of the Eastern Cape. More specifically, the thesis seeks to understand how different stakeholders respond to this intervention and what steps they take to indicate their responses. / South Africa