In this article, I advance two separate but related critiques of current approaches to classifying and analyzing culturally, socially, and medically motivated genital modifications: first that the widely employed categories of female circumcision and male circumcision separate these practices in gendered terms that are inconsistent with both the reality of these practices and fundamental social scientific principles, and second that the practice of neonatal male circumcision that emerged from Anglophone medical practice to become an entrenched social norm in the United States merits a critical evaluation beyond that which it has heretofore been subjected. These critiques lead me to propose an alternative approach to the conceptual classification of genital modification practices, one in which the extent of the modification, the meanings of the practice to those involved, whether it is motivated by a group or individual desire, and the developmental stage of the individual form a framework for analysis, rather than the geographically and gender-based approaches that have resulted in the profoundly ethnocentric exceptionalism that characterizes most current research, writing, and activism on the matter. The differential attention paid to male and female circumcision fails to reflect the cultural sensibilities of those whose practices are in question and creates a de facto exceptionalism by which US practices are exempted from the same scrutiny afforded by others. I address specifically the gendered approach to African circumcision practices, including the recent attention that male circumcision has received as a potential anti-HIV intervention, and I argue the need for a much more vigorously critical scholarly attention to US circumcision practices. My approach is influenced by critical medical anthropology, which frames its inquiries around a focus on the human body and which does not accept biomedical knowledge as factual a priori, but rather seeks to contextualize it within the socially and culturally relevant system of knowledge that has produced it. I draw also on the history of circumcision, campaigns for both its promulgation and elimination, and my own ethnographic work with US parents on how they make the decision whether to circumcise their newborn sons.
This article incorporates an island Indigenous perspective into a discussion of the popular sub-national island jurisdiction (SNIJ) hypothesis that focuses on cultural and political aspects. Corsica and Hawai'i both fit the SNIJ profile; but, in each case, the island Indigenous population is excluded from the benefits that accrue to affiliated islands. An Indigenous perspective on the question of affiliation includes consideration of cultural factors like language and identity in addition to political elements like sovereignty, independence, and affiliation. Any SNIJ or independent small island that bears a colonial history requires accounting for the island Indigenous populations as distinct elements. Corsicans and Hawaiians alike have suffered loss of language, land, and lifeways since their transitions from independence to dependency, demonstrating that measures beyond the economic and sociodemographic need to be taken into account when determining the well-being of an island territory in its particular stage of decolonization.
The movement in Italy known as calcio popolare, or people's football, is characterized by the organization of fan owned and managed football teams in local divisions. Growing out of the Italian ultrà phenomenon, calcio popolare marks a fifth phase in the history of the ultrà movement, expressing the alienation from heavily commercialized mass-market professional football felt by fans. This article draws on the authors' direct experience with CS Lebowski, one of the oldest and most successful of the calcio popolare teams, to illustrate the ways in which these teams present implicit and explicit challenges to the current degree of commercialization that characterizes professional football.
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