The Effect of Totalising Otherness in the Fight Against Female Genital Mutilation: Religious Narratives as an Ambivalent Factor

This article analyses female genital mutilation (FGM) from an interdisciplinary perspective, with particular attention to its identity-related dimension and to the interaction between culture, religion, exclusion, and legal responses to violence against women. The study examines the evolution of its treatment and public perception, from the relative invisibility characteristic of early anthropological approaches within Western public and political agendas to its progressive recognition as an extreme form of gender-based violence. Methodologically, it is based on a documentary and comparative analysis of normative instruments, institutional reports, and specialised academic literature. As a specific contribution, the article develops the category of “absolute or totalising otherness” to explain identity-based exclusion and the particular vulnerability of women and girls simultaneously exposed to forms of exclusion based on sex, culture, race, religion, and migration status. The analysis identifies several barriers to eradication, including the lack of comparable data capable of assessing its actual prevalence, proposals advocating the medicalisation of FGM as a purported lesser evil, and dynamics of exclusion in host countries that may reinforce reactive identities and re-signify the value of identity-based rites of passage. The findings further suggest that the persistence of FGM depends not only on these factors, but also on the narratives that sustain or challenge the practice, within which religious discourse acquires particular significance. However, the position adopted by religious spokespersons, leaders, and institutions remains ambivalent: they may provide an argument or alibi that sacralises the rite or, conversely, serve to challenge the false belief that it constitutes a religious mandate, thereby excluding the practice from the moral and religious order.