Law Commons^™

Cultural Culprits, Michelle Mckinley

Studio for Law and Culture

This paper draws from a longer Article that examines questions of agency, victimization, and cultural essentialism in U.S. asylum adjudication and cultural defense cases specifically, and in international human rights law more broadly. I explore the adjudication of FGC asylum claims based on cultural persecution” that encode a racialized view of culture. I describe the historical trajectory of contemporary FGC claims through a detailed analysis of colonial anti-excision campaigns. I compare early 19th century anti-excision campaigns with contemporary maternal imperialism, as international law, UN agencies, and international financial institutions became more responsive to feminist concerns about eradicating FGC. Throughout the …