Why read Law's Cut on the Body of Human Rights?

Book cover of Law's Cut on the Body of Human Rights: Female Circumcision, Torture and Sacred Flesh

Book description

Scenes of violence and incisions into the flesh inform the demand for law. The scene of little girls being held down in practices of female circumcision has been a defining and definitive image that demands the attention of human rights, and the intervention of law. But the investment in protecting…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Law's Cut on the Body of Human Rights as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Debangana Chatterjee

Author

What may be construed as violence is a matter of the vantage point and the politics of language (the language of culture vs. the language of the state) surrounding human rights. Rogers paints a unique parallel between female circumcision and torture from a psychoanalytic perspective.

Both entail bodily "mutilation" or disfiguration of a certain kind, yet they are treated differently in the discourses of human rights. The cut flesh of the circumcised woman becomes the sole bearer of the truth surrounding the "violative" cultural practice.

But, the act of state-sponsored torture perpetrated on the purported terrorists, who are imprisoned without…

From Debangana's list on The best international books that put a unique lens on gender and culture.