CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
3.7 L IMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
while fact-checking information rigorously in this post-truth era.38 As in Appendix F (page 237-8), I have drawn on posts that were from a personal Twitter account. I sought the permission of the Twitter account user. I did this even though the account was a public account, because of what I call reflexive consent.
Reflexive consent, unlike the bureaucratic informed consent I described in Section 3.2, is a consent that ensures that even where information is circulated in public domains, when utilised elsewhere besides original the source platform (e.g., in this doctoral study), the user is made aware and consents to such use.
The intention behind reflexive consent is to critically engage with the act of seeking consent in decolonial work by confronting the legacy of extractive colonial research, which in many cases consists of non- consensually obtained knowledge from indigenous groups. It allows for the participant to change their mind and say ‘no’ at any point of the research and/or publication process, even after the consent forms have been signed.
used according to need, availability and accessibility. For example, on page 13, I highlighted that girls from lower-income brackets may opt to supplement their use of single-use disposable sanitary wear with RUMPs in order to be cost-efficient. Nevertheless, the use of more sustainable sanitary wear like RUMPs and the menstrual cup is not an automatic signifier of (lower) economic status. Ecofeminists in the global North may also advocate for re-usable sanitary wear as part of a (third-wave) menstrual activism (Bobel, 2007;
Lorber, 2010). This activism lobbies for effective menstrual waste management that conserves the environment in a bid to battle climate change (Roxburgh et al., 2020). By complicating the cross- sectionality of choices, the term MHMMMs seeks to decolonialise the idea of poverty, highlighting that even the existing shorthand fails to capture the nuance of third worlds within the first world and first worlds within third worlds. The dilemma of shorthand is that concomitantly, while desiring to abbreviate meaningful terms, the abbreviations themselves have a tendency to divest the phenomenon they describe of their meaning. This conundrum is not unlike the challenge of decolonising curricula and pedagogy (Morreira, Luckett, Kumalo & Ramgotra, 2020), while using colonial structures (and tools) such as the university. Hence, we find that in presenting the pitfalls of these terms – which, like MHI, are not accessible, and even I as a development practitioner find to be inaccessible – I propose a more accessible term, which is still inaccessible in many respects42.
The interconnectedness of the globe means people in the global North and the global South have commonalities of experience. Menstruation and its management is one such unifying experience. For example, amid the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, Garikipati (2020) highlights that the sanitary wear crisis in India[43] “is not only the case in India. Women in Fiji[44], the US[45], the UK[46] and other parts of the world47 [like Zimbabwe] have also reported severe supply shortages and hiked up prices for disposable menstrual products”.48 Hence it is at times of crisis, such as when development discourse is seen in
42 This language of alphabet is especially inaccessible to those outside of the field of development practitioners and development scholars. I recall being completely lost in this jargon when first began working at an international non- governmental organisation – an iNGO. There is a tendency within the development sector to create a language within the language and a discourse with the discourse(s) through this shorthand. Where possible in this dissertation I have avoided acronyms. However, this is a study on the cusp of development studies and sociology, and I am forced to converse in this language of alphabet even while seeking to dismantle and transform certain parts of the discourse.
43 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-52718434
44 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/10/food-over-sanitary-pads-women-in-fiji-struggling-to-cope-with- periods-in-the-pandemic
45 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/05/us/02IHW-virus-tampons-pads-periods-product-shortages.html
46 See details on COVID-19-related period poverty in the UK at https://therealistwoman.com/reported-shortages-of- menstrual-products-amid-pandemic/
47 https://therealistwoman.com9/reported-shortages-of-menstrual-products-amid-pandemic/
48 See also Plan International (2020).
emergency state practice, that the term MHMMMs finds underscored significance as we consider what menstrual hygiene management methods and materials are most sustainable for girls now and in the future.
Though the term MHMMMs is menstruation-focused, it resonates with Field-Springer and Margavio Striley’s (2018) MMEE. Field-Springer and Margavio Striley propose a way of “interpreting bodily ways of knowing, experiences informed by actions, and reflective dimensions guided by sociocultural conditions that either constrain or enable efforts to be and act in the world” (2018:700). They refer to this theory as managing meanings of embodied experience – MMEE (Field-Springer & Margavio Striley, 2018:700). In encapsulating limitations and choices, MHMMMs is a term that helps us to consider what alternative strategies can (and are) adopted in the absence, unavailability, inaccessibility, unaffordability of disposable sanitary wear. For we see that multiple-use sanitary wear are not a matter of racialised poverty but find their resonance and relevance in a universalised rights-based (development) discourse.