It is only a tradition: making sense of Swedish Somalis’ narratives of female circumcision and avoiding submission to hegemonic political discourse

Abstract

This paper discusses the perspective and conclusions of an article in Critical Social Policy: ‘“It’s only a tradition”: making sense of eradication interventions and the persistence of female “circumcision” within a Swedish context’ (Ahlberg et al., 2004). In their analysis of Swedish Somalis’ narratives of female circumcision, the authors interpret the unwillingness of the interviewees to admit a persistence of tradition in terms of ‘denial’ and ‘avoidance’. We argue that an inadequate starting point makes their analysis biased, resulting in a violation of the interviewees’ point of view. There is a lack of contextualization and triangulation. Instead of persistence of tradition, as emphasized by Ahlberg et al., we see reasons to focus on processes of abandonment of the practice. Their article raises issues of the researcher’s position in a politicized context and of the importance of an awareness of how our preconceptions, as researchers, are formed by hegemonic political discourse.