Internalizing Knowledge and Changing Attitudes to Female Genital Cutting/Mutilation (2013)
This study is a Exploratory research regarding All FGM/C with the following characteristics:
Author(s): Inger-Lise Lien and Jon-Håkon Schultz
FGM/C Type(s): All
Health area of focus: None.
Objective: To describe change of attitude to female genital cutting
Study Population: informants (a network of activists and a group of Gambian women)
Findings: This study shows that internalizing a packet of information as adults,that contradicts an old schema of knowledge internalized as children,can be experienced as epistemologically very painful. Activists in Norway who have changed their attitude to FGC have got information from different educational institutions,from seminars and conferences,from work as interpreters in hospitals,and from discussions among families and friends. Information can be received,listened to and subsequently discarded. In order to design FGC-abandonment campaigns,the importance of the internalization process in order for the individual to make an attitudinal change must be understood Findings from this study make it difficult to argue that attitudinal change will happen automatically merely as a consequence of staying in an FGC-negative environment,where the procedure is illegal and has low status among the majority population.
Geographical coverage
Region(s):Northern Europe
Country(ies):Norway