Using a documentary film to support the campaign to end female genital mutilation in Kenya

Abstract

My FGM Story, Kenya (2022) is a documentary in English (with subtitles) created to be aired on Kenyan television; it has also been translated into Maasai to be shown by activists working to end female genital mutilation (FGM) among the Maasai community in Kenya. The film is presented and produced by filmmaker Laissa Malih Kaunga, who is from Kenya’s Maasai community, and was made in collaboration with Kenyan journalists and #EndFGM activists. The film was made based on research conducted in The Gambia in 2020, where local activists and journalists collaborated to make the film My FGM Story (2020), which was aired on TV in The Gambia to support the country’s #EndFGM campaign. The key finding of that research project was that an effective film that can persuade individuals to stop engaging in FGM must be specific to that country and reflect the perceptions and traditions of FGM related to that community. This article examines how My FGM Story, Kenya builds on the previous project in The Gambia and draws on Cialdini’s research on the psychology of persuasion. While the methodology of collaboration and participation between journalists and activists to the films in Kenya and the Gambia was similar, their contents are very different, reflecting cultural differences between the cultures of The Gambia and Kenya.

Keywords

Female genital mutilation / Documentary filmmaking / Kenya / Psychology of persuasion / Collaboration / Maasai / Journalism / The Gambia

Funding

28 Too Many https://www.fgmcri.org provided funding for the making of My FGM Story, Kenya.

Conflict of interest

The author declares no competing interests.

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