Janice Boddy is a Canadian
anthropologist
An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...
. As Professor of Anthropology at the
University of Toronto,
Boddy specializes in
medical anthropology, religion, gender issues, and
colonialism in
Sudan
Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...
and the Middle East. She is the author or co-author of ''Wombs and Alien Spirits'' (1990), ''Aman: The Story of a Somali Girl'' (1995), and ''Civilizing Women: British Crusades in Colonial Sudan'' (2007).
In a paper "Womb as oasis: the symbolic context of Pharaonic circumcision in rural Northern Sudan" (''American Ethnologist'', 1982), Boddy argued for a cultural contextualization of
female genital mutilation
Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting, female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and female circumcision, is the ritual cutting or removal of some or all of the external female genitalia. The practice is found ...
in Africa by those who wish to see the practice abandoned.
Education
Boddy obtained her BA from
McGill University, her MA from the
University of Calgary and, in 1982, her PhD from the
University of British Columbia.
[
]
Awards
Boddy is believed to be the first women from the University of Toronto Scarborough to be selected to the Royal Society of Canada
The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; french: Société royale du Canada, SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bil ...
. The second woman, Lisa Jeffrey
Lisa Claire Jeffrey FRSC is a Canadian mathematician, a professor of mathematics at the University of Toronto. In her research, she uses symplectic geometry to provide rigorous proofs of results in quantum field theory.
Jeffrey graduated from P ...
, was elected in 2007.
Notes
Further reading
Homepage
University of Toronto.
*Luhrman, Tanya
''The New York Times'', 25 March 1990 (review of ''Wombs and Alien Spirits'').
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boddy, Janice
Female genital mutilation
Canadian anthropologists
Canadian women anthropologists
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
McGill University alumni
University of Calgary alumni
University of British Columbia alumni
Academic staff of the University of Toronto
Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada