The goal of abolishing female genital cutting (FGC, or also FGM or 'female circumcision') requires that the socio-cultural dynamics of the practice be well understood if behavioural change is to be accomplished. This paper, based on the literature and the author's ethnographic research in Sudan, reports on the research issues of studying the variation in and complexity of cutting practices and their cultural correlates, arguing for multiple approaches and methods. It highlights directions for future research.

Ethnographic research in seven rural Sudanese communities in 2004 demonstrates the deep association between infibulation and expectations for successful male sexual response, reinforced by aesthetic values about the preferred body form for females. In contrast, women conceive of the uninfibulated body as lacking in both propriety and beauty, as well as making a woman less able to please a husband sexually. Female sexual response has only recently begun to be discussed in the context of change efforts to end female genital cutting.

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[Ellen Gruenbaum is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Connecticut, having received graduate training in a joint program with the Department of Community Medicine in Social Sciences and Health Services. She spent five years in Sudan, during which time she served on the faculty of the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Khartoum and carried out research projects for the Sudanese National Economic and Social Research Council, the F.A.O., and the Ministry of Social Affairs, as well as completing her doctoral research. The title of her dissertation, which she expects to complete in 1982, is “Health Services, Health and Development in Sudan: The Impact on the Gezira Irrigated Scheme.” For the past two years she has been Research Associate in the Department of Community Medicine at the University of the Connecticut School of Medicine, coordinating the Cross‐National Study of Health Systems Program. She is also coeditor of the Comparative Health Systems Newsletter.]

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