Uncovering the Experiences of Basti-Dwelling Adolescent Girls Who Menstruate in Hyderabad, India: Protocol for a Multimethod Critical Qualitative Study.

BACKGROUND: Rapid urbanization in India is straining the government's capacity to provide basic amenities such as housing, sanitation, electricity, and water. One group of people who are deeply affected are adolescent girls who menstruate. In urban slums, referred to as bastis in Telugu and Hindi, this reality is worsened by spatial congestion and limited water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) resources. This study is situated in the populous slum colonies of Film Nagar, Hyderabad, where residents navigate precarious living conditions and a scarcity of basic amenities.

OBJECTIVE: In this context, we argue that menstrual experiences are profoundly shaped by an interplay of biological, sociopolitical, and environmental factors. This study aims to examine how these intersecting dimensions shape the menstrual experiences of slum-dwelling adolescent girls (aged 8-18 years) in Film Nagar by understanding the (1) sociocultural and political discourse, (2) intergenerational household power dynamics, and (3) the enabling environment.

METHODS: Guided by biopolitics and poststructuralist feminist theory, we use a critical ethnographic approach involving intergenerational households (adolescent girls, mothers, fathers, and unmarried brothers aged 15-24 years). Approximately 18-28 informants across 5-8 households will be recruited using maximum variation, purposive, and snowball sampling, targeting. Data generation includes rapport-building, participant observation (journaling, voice recordings, photography, or transect walks), document analysis, focus group discussions (FGDs), and in-depth interviews (IDIs). Analysis occurs concurrently using frame analysis: transcripts undergo value or narrative coding to inductively identify codes, followed by axial and selective coding to group codes into discourses interpreted through our theoretical framework, yielding dominant frames addressing each research question. Findings will inform a digital storytelling output along with a 3-paper thesis and peer-reviewed journal publication.

RESULTS: This study is part of the primary author's doctoral dissertation, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Doctoral Fellowship (2023-2026) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) International Doctoral Research Award (2024-2025). Ethics approval was obtained from the University of Toronto and University of Hyderabad research ethics boards in January 2025. Recruitment closed in September 2025 with 18 households enrolled. Data collection closed in March 2026. Protocol deviations included narrowing the study from 5 to 2 slum colonies due to time constraints, resequencing methods to begin with maternal focus groups to build trust, shifting to small group discussions in participants' homes, adding ethnographic interviews, and permitting verbal consent; 3 of these changes required Research Ethics Board (REB) amendment. Dissemination is anticipated by September 2027.

CONCLUSIONS: This study is expected to (1) clarify how sociopolitical, familial, and environmental factors interact to shape menstrual experiences among adolescent girls in urban slums and (2) inform context-sensitive menstrual health policies and programs for similar low-resource settings.