LA CIRCUNCISIóN FEMENINA, LA ANTROPOLOGíA Y EL LIBERALISMO

a new comer to the anthropology of african peoples and to the study of female genital cutting, the author reacts to the speeches and writings of american and sierra leonean scholar fuambai ahmadu on these matters. inspired by her work, the author argues that many of the perceptions and much of the rhetoric of anti fgm (anti female genital mutilation) movements are parochial, imperialistic, and illiberal, and suggests that anthropologists and others take counsel from anthropology's age-old methodological prescription to attend carefully and over an extended period of time to the discourses and other practices of the people we study and to be reflexively critical about our own premises and beliefs, prior to adopting any purportedly liberal cause that seeks to eradicate any alien social practice.