Female genital mutilations as a political issue - The cornerstone of the political discourse on female genital mutilations in Germany

Female genital mutilations are on the political agenda today. For a long time, this was not the case, such practices were mainly a topic for non-governmental organisations. In Germany, the cornerstone for this political interest was laid in the second half of the 1990s, when female genital mutilations were first on the agenda of a plenary session of the German parliament, the Bundestag. More particularly, on December 12th 1997, several Social Democratic and Green parliamentarians demanded information and accountability from the federal government. But what exactly did this discourse look like, and what circumstances favoured its emergence in this form, at that time? These, in Foucauldian terms, archaeological questions will be explored in this paper in order to grasp the rules of the constitution of the discourse and to uncover the incidents that, in the order in which they occurred, led to female genital mutilations becoming a topic of the political discourse in Germany. The discourse on female genital mutilations is not unexplored. For the discourse in the global north, scientists have shown that it was conducted in the 19th century with a focus on mutilations of the genitalia of the country's female population. When such practices came to an end at the beginning of the 20th century, this changed both the focus and the evaluation of such practices. From then on, the discourse was conducted with a focus on practices in the global south and the otherness of practicing communities underlined. Also, the discourse in the global north diminished, until it regained strength at the end of the 20th century albeit in a modified form. In Germany, female genital mutilations have been a political issue for three decades now, nevertheless this has not received any noteworthy attention in research so far. This is not primarily astonishing because of the time span, but because of the impact power. Discourses at the level of politics exercise a high degree of power in themselves. In addition, however, they have an effect beyond this, by being taken up by discourses in the media and everyday life. These discourses on female genital mutilations unfold their impact primarily in the lives of people who belong to a practising community or are perceived as such. A first important step in understanding the political discourse on female genital mutilations, i.e. the development it has taken and made into what it is today and how it impacts, is its archaeological analysis.To this end, the paper will focus on the 13th legislative period (November 1994 - October 1998), the period in which the above mentioned (211th) plenary debate took place. The corresponding protocol of the plenary session represents the data. They are analysed using the method of a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as developed by Siegfried Jäger and his colleagues at the Duisburg Institute for Language and Social Research and based on Michel Foucault's discourse theory approach.