Based on fieldwork that aimed to gather more knowledge on female genital cutting among Kurdish–Norwegians, in this article we report on how research participants would often talk about male circumcision instead. Informed by current scholarship and public discourse on female genital cutting and male circumcision, we identified three themes when analysing how and why the participants would talk about male circumcision rather than female genital cutting: (1) the condemnation of female genital cutting; (2) the acceptability of male circumcision and (3) the questioning of the acceptability of male circumcision. We do not attempt to provide solutions to whether some forms of male circumcision are less, equally or more harmful than some forms of female genital cutting, or whether they are comparable and both should thus either be legitimized or banned. Rather we aim to provide insights into these dilemmas by the use of the concept of ‘mapping controversies’ associated with actor–network theory. We further make use of the slippery slope argument to explore how the research participants’ views shed light on political reluctance to treat female genital cutting and male circumcision in the same way in the Norwegian context. While we are not in a position to say that the views shared are the same in other social groups, or in other countries, we argue that the Norwegian government’s different treatment of female genital cutting and male circumcision changes the meaning of ritual boy circumcision and that this may result in parents deciding not to circumcise their sons.

中文翻译：

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“我为什么给他割礼？” 在库尔德-挪威人中进行女性生殖器切割的定性研究中，与男性包皮环切术的意外比较

基于旨在收集更多库尔德－挪威人女性生殖器切割知识的田野调查，在本文中，我们报告了研究参与者通常如何谈论男性包皮环切术。根据当前关于女性生殖器切割和男性包皮环切术的学术研究和公开讨论，我们在分析参与者如何以及为何谈论男性包皮环切术而不是女性生殖器切割时确定了三个主题：（1）谴责女性生殖器切割；（2）男性包皮环切术的可接受性；（3）男性包皮环切术的可接受性质疑。我们不试图提供解决方案，以解决某些形式的男性包皮环切术是否比某些形式的女性生殖器切割术少，同等或更有害，或者它们是否具有可比性，因此都应合法化或取缔。相反，我们的目的是通过使用与演员-网络理论相关的“映射争议”概念来提供对这些难题的见解。我们进一步利用滑坡的观点来探讨研究参与者的观点如何阐明在挪威语境下以相同方式对待女性生殖器切割和男性包皮环切术的政治意愿。虽然我们不能说其他社会群体或其他国家的观点是相同的，但我们认为挪威政府对女性生殖器割礼和男性割礼的不同处理改变了礼节性男孩割礼的含义，并且这可能导致父母决定不给儿子割礼。