Convenors
Alice Buonaguidi, University of Milano-Bicocca
alice.buonaguidi@unimib.it (corresponding scholar)
Chichi (Chiara) Perin, University of Parma
chiara.perin@unipr.it
Although menstruation is a bodily experience shared by most people with a uterus across their lifetime, it has historically remained marginal within public and academic discourse, either reduced to a purely biomedical, hygienic-sanitary matter or silenced as a merely “natural” fact unworthy of social inquiry (Dubriwny, 2012; Bobel, 2020).
The past decade, however, has seen growing attention to menstruation-related challenges (Bobel et al., 2020), including, but not limited to, societal stigma (Johnston-Robledo & Chrisler, 2013; Åkerman et al., 2024); the androcentrism and normativity permeating medical practice and knowledge production (Frank, 2020; King, 2020); health and class inequalities (Vora, 2020); institutional violence (Tapp & Henson, 2024); the normalization of women’s pain and the dismissal of menstrual symptoms and needs (Seear, 2009); and the marginalization of trans* and non-binary experiences (Rydström, 2020).
Building on this expanding field, which has increasingly brought into view the connections between embodied experience, social inequalities, institutional practices, identities and processes of inclusion and exclusion, this panel proposes a space for ethnographic debates on menstruation as a social, cultural and political phenomenon, shaped by power relations, gender norms, stigma, economic inequalities and everyday practices of care, concealment and resistance.
The panel approaches menstruation within broader bodily trajectories, including fertility, contraception, chronic conditions, amenorrhea, perimenopause and menopause. We are particularly interested in how people experience and negotiate social, medical and institutional definitions of normality, health, pain, fertility and bodily functioning, and in how these categories enter everyday practices of self-understanding, care, diagnosis and treatment. Contributions may also examine the material conditions through which menstrual health is made possible or constrained, including unequal access to menstrual products, healthcare, information and adequate infrastructures. We are equally interested in the forms of activism that have emerged around menstrual health and inequalities, from period poverty campaigns and digital mobilization to grassroots and community initiatives that challenge dominant understandings of menstruation and develop collective and mutual forms of support.
The panel particularly welcomes ethnographic and qualitative work in all its forms, including situated ethnography, institutional ethnography and autoethnography, as well as work engaging with creative methods and alternative research methodologies. We also encourage contributions informed by intersectional, decolonial and non-Eurocentric perspectives, and those that critically reflect on the researcher’s positionality and on what becomes visible, speakable or inaccessible in research on embodied experiences.
Open questions
- How are menstruation, menstrual health, and bodies socially understood as reproductive experienced and negotiated in everyday life and through life-course transitions?
- How are menstrual experiences shaped by gender, class, race, migration status, dis/ability, age, sexuality and other social inequalities?
- How do technologies, digital platforms, tracking practices, and health infrastructures transform relationships with menstrual cycles, their absences and reproductive possibilities?
- What forms of menstrual health activism are emerging, and how do social movements, community initiatives and participatory practices challenge or reshape dominant understandings of menstruation and menstrual health?
- How are menstruating bodies governed within institutions such as schools, prisons, hospitals and workplaces, including through forms of regulation, neglect, surveillance and unequal access to care and resources?
- What specific insights can ethnographic approaches offer into embodied menstrual experiences, everyday practices and institutional settings?
- How is the researcher’s positionality implicated in what becomes visible, speakable or inaccessible in the ethnographic field?
Keywords
menstrual health; embodiment; menstrual inequalities; menstrual governance; activism; intersectionality; situated ethnography
Sub-disciplines / cross-disciplinary areas
Critical Health Studies, Sociology of Health, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Queer and Trans Studies, Body and Embodiment Studies, Science and Technology Studies, Social Policy
References
Åkerman, E., Wängborg, A., Persson, M., Sörensdotter, R., & Klingberg-Allvin, M. (2024). Navigating menstrual stigma and norms: A qualitative study on young people’s menstrual experiences and strategies for improving menstrual health. BMC Public Health, 24(1), 3401. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-20936-5
Bobel, C. (2020). Introduction: Menstruation as lens, menstruation as opportunity. In C. Bobel, I. T. Winkler, B. Fahs, K. A. Hasson, E. A. Kissling, & T.-A. Roberts (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of critical menstruation studies (pp. 1–6). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0614-7_1
Bobel, C., Winkler, I. T., Fahs, B., Hasson, K. A., Kissling, E. A., & Roberts, T.-A. (Eds.). (2020). The Palgrave handbook of critical menstruation studies. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0614-7
Dubriwny, T. N. (2012). The vulnerable empowered woman: Feminism, postfeminism, and women’s health. Rutgers University Press.
Frank, S. E. (2020). Queering menstruation: Trans and non-binary identity and body politics. Sociological Inquiry, 90(2), 371–404. https://doi.org/10.1111/soin.12355
Johnston-Robledo, I., & Chrisler, J. C. (2013). The menstrual mark: Menstruation as social stigma. Sex Roles, 68(1–2), 9–18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-011-0052-z
King, S. (2020). Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and the myth of the irrational female. In C. Bobel, I. T. Winkler, B. Fahs, K. A. Hasson, E. A. Kissling, & T.-A. Roberts (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of critical menstruation studies (pp. 287–302). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0614-7_23
Rydström, K. (2020). Degendering menstruation: Making trans menstruators matter. In C. Bobel, I. T. Winkler, B. Fahs, K. A. Hasson, E. A. Kissling, & T.-A. Roberts (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of critical menstruation studies (pp. 945–959). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0614-7_68
Seear, K. (2009). The etiquette of endometriosis: Stigmatisation, menstrual concealment and the diagnostic delay. Social Science & Medicine, 69(8), 1220–1227. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.07.023
Tapp, K., & Henson, A.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.07.023 (2024). “For men, by men”: Menstrual victimization and the weaponization of period products in carceral settings. Women’s Health, 20, 17455057241240931. https://doi.org/10.1177/17455057241240931
Vora, S. (2020). The realities of period poverty: How homelessness shapes women’s lived experiences of menstruation. In C. Bobel, I. T. Winkler, B. Fahs, K. A. Hasson, E. A. Kissling, &T.-A. Roberts (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of critical menstruation studies (pp. 31–47). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0614-7_4
Convenors’ bio
Alice Buonaguidi holds a PhD in Analysis of Social and Economic Processes and is an adjunct lecturer at the University of Milano-Bicocca. Her research examines gendered inequalities, with particular attention to sexual health and rights, gender-based violence and the intersections of gender and migration.
Chichi (Chiara) Perin holds a Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Milan. The doctoral thesis ethnographically examines the construction of masculinity and sexuality in digital environments. Their post-doctoral research at University of Parma investigated the encounter between trans* people and social and healthcare services. Other interests focus on chronic pain, queer and feminist methodologies, creative methods.