Cutting Is A God Chapter Summary

because he angered the gods. To circumcisers like Atanga, “cutting is a god” and the practice is missed because it used to represent a relationship with the gods based on “taking and giving, mutual attention, care, and accountability” (Hodžić 2016). The severing of this relationship which the ending of cutting causes, could have dire consequences, as demonstrated by Atanga’s story.
Another main argument in this book is that although it is often presumed that anti-FGM NGOs lack cultural knowledge, they are actually quite knowledgeable and are instead refusing to translate “popular and official notions about health and harm” (Hodžić 2016). Also, it is important to note these misrepresentations of cutting do not retract from the program’s achievements

It is refreshing to read about how cut women give meaning to the ending of cutting by constructing a discourse, which Hodžić names the “blood narrative.” The author argues that the significance of blood in Ghana differs from the biomedical narrative (which says it is a replenishable substance) because in Ghana blood is seen as precious and scarce. This “blood shortage,” Hodžić argues, is a concern than cut Ghanaian women have. To these women, it does not matter that they were a part of the cutting practice, because they are now more concerned with the underlying condition of their bodies, and how they have become predisposed to having blood shortages because of prolonged structural violence and severe food scarcity. Cut women look at this blood loss as a crisis which has made their bodies deteriorate and become more vulnerable over time. The author refers to this phenomenon as “slow harm.” The blood narrative does not critique the immediate effects of anticutting interventions; instead, it looks at what NGOs leave unaddressed in terms of some of the deeper issues rooted in the practice of cutting, like the extraction of female vitality. This relates back to the author’s argument about the uneven ending of cutting. Women say that cutting had to end because their bodies had become chronically

Seeing how the growth of anti-FGM NGOs has influenced the growth of discourses, institutions, and political agendas was one of the most powerful aspects of this ethnography because it described some of the current effects of FGM and its end in Ghana. The one thing which Hodžić did not address in these chapters, which would have been interesting to analyze is how (or if) feminism and the idea of female empowerment play a role in the anti-FGM NGO’s motives and methods as well as in the discourse of cut women. Additionally, although Hodžić briefly discussed this in various parts of the book, it would have been interesting if she had addressed in more detail the role of the patriarchal society, and whether it was uninfluential, an obstacle, or supportive, in the ending of