Fall/Winter 2003-04

Ends of the Earth

by Mary Shafer

Across the globe today, some 130 million women have been circumcised. The custom persists despite its almost universal condemnation by world governments. In Egypt, for example, says Elizabeth Heger Boyle, 97 percent of married women have undergone the painful rite of passage, even as the Egyptian government bans the practice.

In Boyle's view, female circumcision genital cutting, or mutilation (depending on the perspective) offers a starting point for thinking about the interplay between the global and the local in cultures around the world.

Boyle, an associate professor of sociology, has always been an avid internationalist, although not always in academia. With a law degree from the University of Iowa, she practiced for a time as a securities lawyer, negotiating transactions all over the world, participating in multinational conference calls at midnight, and finding fascination in the differences between American and international law practice.

"American lawyers [go to] battle for their clients," says Boyle. "Lawyers in other countries tend to look for the right answer." Her interest in how perspectives differ helped bring her to her research.

Always with an eye to "setting her own agenda," Boyle whose bachelor's and master's degrees are in social psychology went back to school after her first child was born, earning a Ph.D. in sociology from Stanford in 1996 and then joining the U of M faculty.

Her interest in and research on female genital cutting culminated last year in the publication of her book Female Genital Cutting: Cultural Conflict in the Global Community (Johns Hopkins Press, 2003). When it comes to issues of globalization, says Boyle, female genital cutting (FGC) has few rivals, touching as it does on everything from women's and states' rights to issues of Western arrogance and cultural autonomy.

Connecting the global and the local

"Female genital cutting can provide unique insights into the operation of global-local connections in the international system," Boyle says in her book.

Boyle explains that global principles drive a nation's policies as much as local cultures do. At the international level, institutionalized values such as individual and human rights protection collide directly and emphatically with the local cultural practice of FGC. To people on the outside, failure to conform to these international principles is seen as an aberration.
On the other hand, FGC is or was until recently institutionalized at the local level. People in the community take the practice for granted and don't reflect on it; it grows out of a shared and firmly entrenched value system. Any who challenge or reject the practice are ostracized. Boyle notes that some women in Egypt were surprised to learn that the women researchers were not circumcised.

"Because of the presumed universality of some individual characteristics, differences across cultures are considered shocking and defined as problematic," says Boyle.

"Egypt adopted an anti-FCG law despite considerable local opposition because [government leaders were] socialized by the international community to value certain ends, to take certain actions, and refrain from taking others." Because Egypt's elected Parliament couldn't pass a law to ban FCG, the government decreed by executive fiat that the practice would no longer be permitted.

"So one question becomes, 'Do we want democracy, or do we want to stop female genital cutting?'" says Boyle. "We work hard to create democracy and majority rule, but we also pressure countries to act the way we want them to.

"To wait for democracy to take its course would be slower. We wouldn't get the result for a long time. But regard for local institutionalized practices is critically important in understanding globalization."

In the aftermath Following 9/11, Boyle noted immediately the deep reverberations in immigrant communities.

During interviews to determine why and how immigrants become U.S. citizens, she says, the conversations kept circling back to 9/11: "We were surprised by the profound implications. It's far harder to be an immigrant now than it was before 9/11. Today's immigrants face very different issues than did those of a generation or two ago."

That's not just because of 9/11, Boyle notes. It's also also due to the dramatic changes in the backgrounds and cultural makeup of immigrants. When the U.S. Immigration Act of 1965 opened U.S. doors to more non-Europeans, people from Africa and Asia immigrated to the U.S. in far greater numbers than ever before, raising issues of "difference." For Americans unused to such diversity, difference sometimes meant discomfort and anxiety, even fear and distrust.

Moreover, says Boyle, "Many of our immigrants today are refugees. This makes a huge difference.

"It's important for the West to understand how intimately we are involved in creating situations that create refugees. Whatever we do has a great effect on the rest of the world-- but our tendency has been not to see that connection."

"The U.S. helped create refugee situations for both Hmongs and Somalians, but has been reluctant to see an obligation to them. It's important that we see our responsibility and our interconnectedness."

Boyle considers herself a bit "obsessed" in her pursuit of understanding things from different perspectives, crediting a Stanford University mentor with setting her on that course by "shaking up my world in terms of what I took for granted."

Now, says Boyle, "I'll take a topic and pursue it to the ends of the earth. But that's what makes a good academic, right?"

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