“We Did It for Pleasure Only”: Hearing Alternative Tales of Female Circumcision

Abstract

This article is based on fieldwork conducted in southern Chad on the recent adoption of female circumcision. In Myabé, a village with a population of about 1,000, girls were first circumcised around 1980. Residents describe female circumcision and their experiences of it in ways that contrast sharply with popular notions of what female circumcision means and how it is practiced, and with the descriptions and interpretations available in the medical, public health, and anthropological literatures. In making sense of these findings, the author questions the reasons for the hegemony of the “standard tale” and argues for the need to allow a plurality of stories and experiences of female circumcision to emerge.