Portal Vermelho: uma etnografia sobre gênero, corpo, sangue, emoções e experiência

Abstract

Menstruation, in a cross-cultural perspective, presents itself as an object of multiple meanings and interpretations, giving rise to the most different customs and beliefs. However, the negative conception of menstrual blood, arising from the taboo surrounding menstruation, was the most widespread view. As ways of relating to this taboo, we see emerging, in contemporary Western society, a process of medicalization of the female body, more specifically of menstruation, as well as several other processes of resistance to this medicalization and resignification of the negative perspective that permeates menstrual blood, such as the practice of Autonomous, Political and Natural Gynecology, such as therapies and menstrual art, among several other movements. The focus of this research is to reflect on these different perspectives that currently emerge in relation to menstruation, seeking to understand how the menstruation taboo is forged, how the medicalization of menstruation takes place and how it has influenced the narratives and practices of women and other menstruating bodies. It is also important, the analysis of the processes of resistance to the medicalization and resignification of menstruation and menstrual blood, based on my own experience as an anthropologist, menstrual therapist and artist, added to the experience of other women and menstrual bodies that crossed my path, during courses, experiences, workshops, meetings, conversation circles and through social networks. As a theoretical-methodological framework, this work seeks to rescue the role of corporeality and autoethnography, seeking to explore the different senses within the fieldwork, as well as a writing guided by subjectivity, by a localized, incarnate, embodied knowledge, of a researcher who moves, involves and let be affected by the field.