Challenges of Our Time: Responses of African and Diasporan Intellectuals to FGM

Abstract

FGM continues to elicit diverse reactions from the intelligentsia in Africa and the Diaspora. The paper appraises the four main orientations of this response: ambivalence, valorization, condemnation, and reformism. It concludes that while each of the four positions has grounds for its cause the least meritorious is that of the valorisation of FGM.