A religious child or a child of religious parents? : An analysis of the circumcision debate in Sweden

Abstract: This thesis set out to study the debate on circumcision of boys in Sweden. The study concerns itself with how categories and positions become rhetorical resources in the debate and how categories andpositions thus are made relevant. In order to get at what is made possible through the use of theserhetorical recourses this study has analyzed debate articles, official Swedish governmental documentsand the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Three interpretativerepertoires surfaced as distinct in this material and they are; Religious identity and belonging,medicine and the UNCRC. The analysis will therefore be structured and guided by these repertoires.As the debate is centred around the Human Rights Paradigm there is an ingrained ideological dilemmain the debate that can be explained as the tension between a Universal and a Cultural relativisticinterpretation of Human Rights. This tension will be discussed throughout the study. Severalconclusions can be drawn from the analysis: The various and contradictory positions allowed for bythe use of the UNCRC makes it an elusive tool in both theory and practice. The ideological dilemmatends to coerce the participants into opposing positions and even question the rhetorical tools utilizedin the debate. The child surfaces in various categories and at the end of this thesis the question remain;Is it a religious child or is it a child of religious parents?