Materialising Resistance: Menstrual Politics, International Law, and Decolonial Futures in Brent Libraries

This article examines the material and spatial dimensions of international law through a case study of Brent Libraries in London, exploring how everyday urban spaces reflect, resist and reimagine legal norms and silences. Focusing on menstruation as a site of embodied resistance, the article critiques the 2021 UN Resolution on ‘Menstrual hygiene management’ for its narrow, hygiene-centred framing and product-based solutions. By analysing Brent’s ‘Period Dignity’ initiative—a collaboration between local government and social enterprise ‘heygirls’—it shows how libraries function as contested spaces where international legal gaps become visible and are actively negotiated. While such interventions challenge menstrual stigma and make menstruation publicly legible, they also risk reproducing colonial narratives and depoliticised frameworks. The article argues for a situationist and decolonial approach to international law that recognises the political potential of local, embodied practices and calls for a more expansive and justice-oriented understanding of menstruation within global legal regimes.