Ladoula Bonkoto Ladoula, Ladoula Bonkoto ye Ngasindindi: Narratives of Female Genital Cutting in Senegal from the Diaspora

Abstract

Female genital cutting (FGC) or l'excision has recently become subject to large-scale international media attention, and challenges ideas concerning the body, gender, and autonomy. Anti-FGC programs are not relegated to rural areas in distant locations but are increasingly relevant within urban centers both in Africa and the African diaspora. Despite large-scale intervention, FGC continues to be practiced throughout Senegal for varying social, cultural, and religious reasons. In this poster/artifact presentation, I draw attention to varying representations of FGC in Senegal coming from the diaspora. It is in this transnational space where innovative methods of storytelling are told in comic books, popular music, and social media. I present comic books, written stories, and listening examples for exploring how narratives of FGC in Senegal are presented on the international stage. My poster presentation consists of both visual and aural artifacts. Recently, two comic books have been written by NGOs for consumption by diasporic audiences that serve as cautionary tales in a fictionalized Senegal. The symbols, images, and characters representing traditional cultural practices are deserving of further analysis as they are presented in contrast to a modernity where FGC no longer occurs. I also provide an Ipad and headphones for participants to listen to internationally recognized hip-hop artist and advocate, Sister Fa, and her song “L'excision,” where she retells her experience undergoing excision during the Jola gassus ritual. Her narrative recreates a ritual experience out of time and place whose meaning changes depending upon the geographic and social proximity of the listener. Sister Fa's work locates FGC as a site-specific cultural practice that cannot be distanced from its geographic, linguistic, and social context, creating tensions when it is reimagined through song. The two types of artifacts illustrate a transnational discourse centered on storytelling whose meanings fluctuate based upon the location of the audience. The movement to discuss FGC through visual and aural mediums is representative of new strategies implemented by human rights campaigns to focus on young people as important social actors to create sustained cultural change. The local performance of womanhood expressed through FGC changes when discussed outside of local contexts and becomes entangled with political, social, and economic development, making it crucial to recognize how these issues are being discussed both within and outside of Senegal. As an exploratory study of female genital cutting as a contentious globalized issue, this presentation seeks to foster a discussion concerning the issues of power, gaze, and the framing of individual accounts, through popular media channels.