Shaping notions of personal autonomy in plural societies: the traditional practice of FGC in French courts
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Data di Pubblicazione:
2014
Citazione:
Shaping notions of personal autonomy in plural societies: the traditional practice of FGC in French courts / L. Bellucci. ((Intervento presentato al convegno (Not) Outside My Culture: The paradoxes of personal autonomy in a plural society tenutosi a Halle/Salle nel 2014.
Abstract:
Female genital cutting (FGC, excision) comes into conflict with the concept of personal autonomy as grounded in many ‘Western’ societies. It is one of the most challenging practices in the study of the paradoxes of personal autonomy in a plural society. With regard to this practice the concept of autonomy is embedded in the normative conflict between customary rules and state legal systems, which arises because FGC violates fundamental rights like the right to physical integrity, health, and non-discrimination on the basis of gender/ethnicity/culture. The study of the French criminal justice system’s treatment of this conflict confirms this remark. FGC is a very ancient practice that is widespread in several geographical areas, mainly Africa, which consists in the ablation, to differing degrees, of female genital organs. Some traditional practices that were ignored when only perpetuated in colonised areas, were considered crimes once ‘imported’ in ‘Western’ countries. These crimes transpose ‘in the realm of criminal law a situation of legal pluralism’ (Foblets, 1998). France is the country with the most extensive jurisprudence on the matter. It is the only country where cases of FGC are systematically brought to court. It is also one of the few countries, among the ‘Western’ countries sanctioning this practice, that did not adopt ad hoc provisions (through an act or an article in the Penal Code) to prohibit it. In France, the practice of excision was strongly debated after a few little girls died from the haemorrhaging caused by FGC. These behaviours were also strongly debated when they were no longer qualified as délit but as crime, with their consequent transfer from the jurisdiction of the Tribunal Correctionnel to the one of the Cour d’Assises. The author conducted an ethnographic inquiry into the French criminal trials related to this practice, that analysed the judicial responses, disclosing the narratives of the trials, the influence of their main social actors, and the dialectic between two normative universes, which are conceptually distant with regard to the priority given to the individual and the group. This empirical research has been carried out through a qualitative content analysis of documents and in-depth interviews with some of the main social actors (judges, lawyers, doctors, anthropologists, interpreters, etc.) involved in the trials. To re-construct the cases and the trials, the author considered it necessary to derive from different sources, combining written sources, including legal (rulings) and non-legal sources (newspapers, periodicals, academic journals, and gray literature), with oral accounts. In her paper the author will directly confront the reader with one of these cases, the Coulibaly case. The author will show that, in perpetuating this practice, women often move away from tradition, thus building new spaces of autonomy, which are only apparently imperceptible. She will also show how the response of the French legal system links the customary norm of excision to the concept of violence and how this association is reiterated in the texts, including regulatory texts, of the European institutions on Female Genital Mutilations (FGM). This paper’s theoretical framework is shaped by Africanist perspectives on FGC. Because of serious health reasons a paper was sent without physically attending the conference.
Tipologia IRIS:
14 - Intervento a convegno non pubblicato
Elenco autori:
L. Bellucci
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