ABSTRACT
In her interesting chapter, Felister Nyaera Nkangi broadens the focus from arguments about female genital mutilation as a harmful cultural practice to examine how to create social change, that is, how to persuade all the relevant actors to abandon the practice, a custom so ingrained in people’s lives that, she reports, “97% of Kenyan Abagusii amputate girls’ genitalia.” Nkangi draws on a particular theory to explain and predict the dissemination of innovation. Nkangi informs us that the abolition of FGM is much higher among urban populations than among rural people. Nkangi’s respondents offered additional reasons for non-acceptance of anti-FGM messages: children are not supposed to advise elders, and the adverse effects of FGM were not believable. Researchers in Kenya may also benefit from studying the eradication of FGM in Israel.
