Carina Listeborn Receives AHRC Funding to Create Menopause Artivism Research Network

Adriana de La Peña Espinosa New Research Project

IUR professor Carina Listerborn received a network grant from  AHRC: Research Grant, together with   Dr Elena Vacchelli (PI), University of Greenwich, Anindita Datta, University of Delhi and Deborah Jermyn, University of Roehampton.

The network title is MAUSI* Net: Menopause Artivism in the UK, Sweden and India.

In the wake of the so-called ‘menopausal turn’ (Jermyn 2020), which sees public figures and mainstream media now openly discuss menopause -the highly stigmatised, misunderstood transition to cessation of menstruation- this network will establish a transdisciplinary, international, cross-cultural collaboration bringing together academics, stakeholders and health professionals to intervene in this changing landscape.

Research coordination objectives

  • Advance transdisciplinary understanding and awareness of post-reproductive health through ongoing collaboration in cross-cultural contexts (UK, Sweden, India)
  • Stimulate knowledge production through international involvement of researchers, stakeholders and wider public in different socio-economic contexts re. understanding of menopause
  • Build a nation-wide advocacy network to include academics in the arts and humanities, social scientists, NGO practitioners, foundations, policy stakeholders, corporate EDI representatives in the field of reproductive/post-reproductive health, to harness international and transdisciplinary dialogue on the importance of understanding the menopause and its impacts 
  • Promote a step-change debate across national boundaries by bringing together different stakeholders including academic, national and international menopause charities, women’s organisations, health professionals, corporate EDI representatives (for instance menopause champions at UoG and RU) and international organisations such as UN Women and World Health Organisation in the three sites (Sweden, India and UK)
  • Shift the discourse away from biomedical discourses towards a broader social science and humanities-based understanding built on lived experiences of people sometimes facing anxiety, depression and identity transition during the menopause 
  • Contest negative discourses around the menopause through artivism and public engagement by amplifying the narratives of diverse women experiencing the menopause across different national, socio-economic and cultural contexts using embodied, art-based and visual methodologies.
  • Decolonise understandings of the menopause by including perspectives of Dalit women who are lower caste/working class and highly discriminated in India 
  • Create sustainable transdisciplinary and cross-cultural network fostering post-reproductive age awareness beyond the duration of the project 
  • Pursue a larger research project based on the international collaboration forged via this project to produce research findings informing post-reproductive health debates from a transdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspective. Potential funders include Wellcome Discovery Award/ Leverhulme Research Project Grant/ UKRI/AHRC and FORTE in Sweden