Gendered Identity and Anti-Female Genital Cutting (FGC) Activism among the Ejaghams, Cameroon

This paper is a critical appraisal of NGO activism against female genital cutting (FGC) practices among Ejagham communities in Southwest Cameroon. The paper argues that by framing female circumcision as a ‘‘harmful traditional practice’’, local anti-female circumcision activists (NGOs and their external allies), using educational, health, legal awareness and human rights-based approaches, have produced mixed results, thereby re-inforcing resistance among cultural hardliners. Their demonization of culture and failure to address the local context of these practices tends rather, to reify and re-inscribe the practice as central to Ejagham cultural identity, personhood and femininity. Although tension is absolutely central not only to any attempt to stop the practice but probably to the processes involved in the practices themselves, I maintain that a community-led, ‘Positive Deviance Approach’ could be a way forward towards the eventual eradication of FGC.