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Frequency-Dependent Social Transmission and the Interethnic Transfer of Female Genital Modification in the African Diaspora and Indigenous Populations of Colombia

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Abstract

We present a quantitative account based on ethnographic and documentary research of the prevalence of female genital modification (FGMo) in the African diaspora and indigenous populations of Colombia. We use these data to test hypotheses concerning the cultural evolutionary drivers of costly trait persistence, attenuation, and intergroup transmission. The uptake of FGMo by indigenous populations in Colombia is consistent with frequency-dependent hypotheses for the social transmission of the FGMo trait from the African diaspora population in the period following the era of slavery in Colombia. The prevalence and severity of practices related to FGMo decline with level of sociocultural integration into mainstream Colombian culture. Our results provide empirical support for the cultural evolutionary models proposed by Ross et al. (2015) to describe the transmission dynamics of FGMo and other costly traits. Analysis of costly trait dynamics contributes knowledge useful to applied anthropology and may be of interest in policy design and human rights monitoring in Colombia and elsewhere.

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Notes

  1. Also known as female circumcision, female genital mutilation, and ablación de clitoris, ablación femenina, clitoridectomía, or clitoristomía, in Spanish. Choice of terminology used in discussions of this practice is problematic. We purposefully avoid using the term “mutilation” in the text of this paper, as we did during interviews with respondents, as we feel that the use of the term “mutilation” is unduly value-laden and insensitive to the women who have endured the practice. Portraying females as mutilated beings is likely to be offensive and disrespectful to many, and may decrease the willingness of respondents to discuss the practice with researchers. Likewise, we feel that it is inappropriate to distance the practice of female genital modification from male genital modification (circumcision), as such an action seems to validate one type of non-consensual amputation of genital tissue (common in “Western” culture) while stigmatizing a similar practice in other cultures. Consequently, we use the more neutral term FGMo broadly, to include clitoral and labial excision, as well as similar but less damaging practices (called Category IV FGM in WHO 1998), such as the application of heated metal instruments to burn the clitoris, or the vaginal application of such chemicals as camphor, salt, and alcohol.

  2. Citará is now the city of Quibdo, in the district of Chocó.

  3. Informal interviews were conducted primarily by Patricia Joyas Campiño (female). When respondents requested that Cody Ross (male) be present for these conversations, he accompanied Patricia.

  4. In Quibdo, a large capital city, it was not feasible to walk along every road. Instead, we conducted two samples. In the first, we walked through the local farmer’s market and invited all women or groups of women we encountered to take part in a brief interview. In the second, we walked through the city center and invited women shopkeepers to take part in interviews. We believe this methodology gives us a very rough, but reasonable, sample of individuals in the two main social classes of Quibdo: the middle-class city dwellers and the more impoverished farmers participating in the market. In Jurubirá we conducted brief interviews with four women encountered at random when our boat stopped for gas on the way from El Valle to Nuqui.

  5. Since even anonymous demographic data (age, number of kids, etc.) collected at the individual-level could easily lead to personal identification in the small communities studied here, and FGMo practices could have legal ramifications, collection of individual-level data on its prevalence would entail a large responsibility (and require a much longer process of written documentation of consent). Given that no one had ever determined the prevalence of FGMo or related practices in the Afrocolombian population, we believed that a rapid assessment of its prevalence would be the most useful first step, even if data were only collected at the village level.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to express their great thanks to the Colombian respondents who took part in this research project, and to the organizations that aided in archival research and provided data. We thank the Human Behavioral Ecology Lab at UC Davis for helpful commentary. Aspects of this research project were funded by UC Davis GSR research funds.

The data on the extent of FGMo in the indigenous populations reviewed in this paper come from publicly available records published by Hospital San Rafael in Pueblo Rico. Census and demographic data reviewed in this paper come from publicly available records published by the Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística (DANE) of Colombia. All other primary data utilized in this study are included in Table 2.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, CA, 95616, USA

    Cody T. Ross

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, La Universidad Gran Colombia, Bogota, Colombia

    Patricia Joyas Campiño

  3. Department of Anthropology and Graduate Group in Ecology, University of California, Davis, CA, 95616, USA

    Bruce Winterhalder

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  1. Cody T. Ross
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Correspondence to Cody T. Ross.

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Ross, C.T., Campiño, P.J. & Winterhalder, B. Frequency-Dependent Social Transmission and the Interethnic Transfer of Female Genital Modification in the African Diaspora and Indigenous Populations of Colombia. Hum Nat 26, 351–377 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-015-9234-7

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