Criminalizing ‘female genital mutilation’: Where is the harm?

Abstract The ‘global prohibition regime’ against ‘female genital mutilation’ (FGM) remains understudied within criminology. Zemiology, with its raison d’être to locate the source and nature of harm, opens up analytical potential. Bringing zemiology together with decolonial feminist approaches for the first time, we analyse data from focus group interviews with people of Somali heritage living in Bristol, England, to consider the unacknowledged harms created by anti-FGM legal and policy developments in the UK context. We argue that the racialized criminalization of ‘FGM’ gives rise to considerable harm: in particular, harms of misrecognition, autonomy and psychological well-being. We conclude by considering the wider relevance of our findings to debates on state responses to violence against women and girls.