Humanitarian Bodies. Gender, Moral Economy and Genitals Modifications in Italian Immigration Policy

On 2006, a Nigerian woman was arrested in the northeast of the Italy and she was charged with the offense of “female genital mutilation” in compliance with Italian Law 7/2006 entitled “provisions concerning the prevention and prohibition of the practice of female genital mutilation”. On 2008 in Bari, in the south, a two-monthold Nigerian infant died following severe haemorrhaging caused by a circumcision performed at home by a compatriot. These two episodes, notwithstanding their difference in context and time, could seem very distant from each other, but these cases are connected exactly at the point where they divide. From the official documents the anthropological analysis focuses on the messages that can be defined as “humanitarian moral”. So the legal implications of these events constitute important precedents and if read, from a gender perspective, help us to shed light on what might be called “differentialist neo-sexism”, which implies the perception of the Other corporeality in the so-called host society. Still, following the two stories sheds more light on what the idea the nation state has regarding the body of immigrants, in general the Others, and in particular on “culturally relevant” treatment of the woman under the law.