Designing, fixing and mutilating the vulva: exploring the meanings of vulval cutting

This PhD thesis questions the gaps and mismatches between different understandings of modifications, cuts or surgeries on the vulva and the vagina. This doctorate brings to the surface the underpinnings behind classifying very similar, if not identical, cuts as vulval cosmetic surgery, intersex surgery and Female Genital Mutilation. It contests the boundaries that are taken for granted between these three 'sorts’ of vulval and vaginal interventions, exploring the concepts (such as health, autonomy, or oppression) which are mobilised in order to justify their different classification. It examines how different discourses, articulated by different actors (feminist scholars, intersex advocates, medical professionals, and policy makers), converge in attaching meaning to these cuts on the vulva and vagina. This PhD argues that the idea of the gendered and racialised body constrains and shapes the conditions of possibility of the current tripartite discourses traversing vaginal and vulval interventions.