The Possibilities of Leaky Bodies. A Feminist Materialist Ethnography of Menstruating Youth

Using feminist new materialist theory and based on ethnographic field work, the monograph examins the (im) possibilities of young menstruants bodily becomings, as they navigate everyday youth life in a predominantly white upper-middle class suburb to Copenhagen, Denmark. To explore menstruation as a socio-material phenomena, the study pays attention to the meanings of whiteness, class and gender in relation to menstruation and zooms in how affects, bodies, blood, slime, pads and tampons matters to young menstruants bodily becomings. The study finds that the ignorance of menstruation in everyday life infrastructures, school pedagogics and peer relations can be limiting to young menstruants possibilities for joyfull participation in everyday life activiites. It however also shows how menstruation can matter for subversions of power and catalyze change, and how the leaky body can act as critique against neoliberal logics of bodies.