To Menstruate In Peace : Embodied experiences of menstruation during migration.

Sammanfattning: Female specific experiences of migration arelacking in mainstream migration studies, even though women make up almost half of the demographic of migrating people. Based on qualitative narrative interviews with six women the primary aim of this thesis is to show how the women negotiated their migrations from a primarily embodied theoretical approach which focuses on feelings in and ofthe body in relation to menstruation within the context of migration. The importance of viewing context or rather situationas constitutive for how women can ‘be’ or ‘not be’ women is decisive for the embodiment approach and provides an understanding for the prescriptive nature of norms in general and gender norms in particular. Overall, the situation of migration positioned the female gender norm and the innate bodily function of menstruation as a counterforce of agency for the women, severely limiting their scopes of agency leading to fear, hyper vigilance and self-policingin a manner that the women did not experience was present for men surrounding them. The additional mental strain that menstruation placedon the women severely aggravated their experiences of migration, a mental strain that was solely connected to fear in relation to their bodies.