Purity, cleanliness, and smell: female circumcision, embodiment, and discourses among midwives and excisers in Fouta Toro, Senegal Sarah O’Neill Universit´ e Libre de Bruxelles Since the 1980s, a multiplicity of medical, social, and anthropological research has looked into different aspects of female genital cutting (FGC), with outcomes that are used as justifications for, or objections to, different forms of intervention on a global level. Yet there is limited research looking at local indigenous medical knowledge, and how potential health problems resulting from cutting are understood and treated by those who perform female circumcision as a profession. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Fouta Toro, Senegal, this article shows that despite some medical professionals’ genuine commitment to stop FGC, their aesthetic notions of cleanliness and repulsion often still conform to dominant discourses and beliefs around purity. This article explores contradictory conceptions of female anatomy, purity, and olfactory differences between excised and unexcised women. It shows that instead of there being a one-dimensional opposition between different forms of knowledge (local/indigenous vs biomedical), as frequently implied in public health messages, people can assimilate seemingly contradictory viewpoints that correspond to their social identities, embodied manners, and the sensory and olfactory perceptions of their social environment. Following the creation of the United Nations (1945) and the World Health Organization (1948), there has been an attempt to homogenize, unify, and perpetuate an institutionally agreed upon set of rights and standards of health and hygiene on a global level. Since then, female genital cutting (FGC) has also been subject to scrutiny and debated in terms of the extent to which it is harmful and constitutes a mutilation (Balk 2000; Gordon 1991; Gruenbaum 1996; Hosken 1976; 1982; Lightfoot-Klein 1989; Shell-Duncan & Hernlund 2000; Toubia 1993; 1994; Toubia & Izette 1998), or whether banning the practice is seen as an infringement of people’s right to practise their traditions and customs (Ahmadu 2007; Grande 2004; Gruenbaum 1996; 2001; Hernlund & Shell-Duncan 2007; Lionnet 2005; Shell-Duncan 2008; Shweder 2005; Thomas 2003; Walley 1997). Particularly since the 1980s, but even more so since the 1990s, a multiplicity of medical, social, and anthropological research has looked into different aspects of FGC with outcomes that are used as justifications for, or objections to, different forms of intervention on a global level. However, there has been limited research looking at local indigenous medical knowledge and how potential health problems resulting from cutting are understood Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 00, 1-19 C  Royal Anthropological Institute 2018