This chapter introduces the book. It outlines how Indigenous peoples sought, and were denied, membership of the international community in the early twentieth century, contrasting it to the situation that prevails today of Indigenous peoples’ inclusion in international governance. It is therefore timely to take stock of these developments. The introduction situates the book in the field, relating it to scholarship on the law of self-determination and Indigenous peoples’ rights. The key limitations of the book are noted, including those relating to epistemic positionality and representation, and the empirical method employed in the book. Key terms are defined, including ’international governance’ and ’Indigenous peoples’, before the structure of the book is outlined.

In Chapter 3, ‘The Proliferation of Indigenous Peoples’ Participation, 1982–2007’, I trace how a pattern of state practice unfurled over a span of 25 years, beginning with the establishment of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations (WGIP) and spreading to numerous other UN organs, international organizations, and other international governance mechanisms. It at first takes a chronological approach, tracing relevant practice from 1988 to 1994 in processes such as the negotiations towards the International Labour Organization Convention No. 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, UN conferences, and several UN expert workshops. It then considers how momentum grew towards the establishment of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. The chapter next turns to consider several parallel trends. It turns to mechanisms for Indigenous peoples’ participation in environment and development negotiations, before tracing Indigenous peoples’ participation in decision-making in international development institutions. The chapter ends by examining three regional stories: the Arctic, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the European Union.

Chapter 2, ‘Finding Support for Indigenous Peoples’ Participation in the Sources of International Law’, turns to a doctrinal analysis. It undertakes an examination of relevant sources of international law on self-determination and Indigenous peoples’ rights, in treaties, declarations, and decisions of international judicial and quasi-judicial bodies. We see how the law of self-determination has been interpreted by the latter bodies as meaning – among other things – participation of peoples at the national (but not necessarily the international) level, and how participation is at the heart of the law on self-determination specific to Indigenous peoples. The chapter then turns to customary international law, reviewing and contextualizing various methodologies for its identification and summarizing how the evidence described in later chapters can be interpreted through these methodologies. Through these lenses, I discuss methodological debates, including the legal status we should assign to the UNDRIP in and of itself, how a provision of the UNDRIP might later crystallize into a rule of custom, and how to regard international organizations in relation to the identification of custom.

Introduction

This chapter focuses on cis women's experiences of problematic hot flushes at work and how their shared workspaces are often beset with tensions around temperature and ventilation as a result. I draw loosely on Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos’ (2010, 2015, 2017, 2020) reading of spatial justice, and Sophie Watson's (2020) use of this concept to understand the Muslim practice of Wudu1 in public spaces, to try to theorize shared organizational space as characterized by a series of injustices in this respect. These are generated, Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos (2017, p 24) explains, as follows:

The data I use are taken from two projects. The first is an online survey that we ran in the summer of 2018 in conjunction with TUC Education on people's knowledge about menopause per se but also and more significantly its impact on their workplaces and them as individual workers. This attracted 5,399 respondents. The second project involved interviews and two surveys at Northshire, a pseudonymous NHS hospital trust in the UK. This was longitudinal, tracking the impact of the Trust's introduction of menopause guidance and an accompanying programme of support on its staff. The arguments I make are also informed by the anecdotes that Vanessa and I hear when sharing our ongoing research on menopause at work which centre on shared organizational space and the challenges of regulating temperature to suit everyone within this kind of space.

Hot flushes at work

During a July 2021 episode of the prime time BBC1 magazine programme The One Show, journalist and presenter Louise Minchin talked about her menopausal hot flushes, and a solution she had been able to implement at work. This she described as ‘a few simple steps’, as follows:

Introduction

In this chapter, we reflect on the possibilities of male allyship for educating about, advocating for and supporting menopausal transition at work as a form of gender or menopausal equality. An ally ‘is any person that actively promotes and aspires to advance the culture of inclusion through intentional, positive and conscious efforts that benefit people as a whole’ (Atcheson, 2018, np).

A variety of practices seek to reduce discrimination and inequality surrounding menopausal transition at work including supervisor or management training, use of occupational health and safety risk assessments to provide suitable accommodations, or the inclusion of menopause in HR and employee health and well-being policies, programmes and activities inter alia (Jack et al, 2016; Hardy, Griffiths and Hunter, 2019; Atkinson et al, 2021a). Much of the scholarly work regarding the nature and benefits of such practices has been based on data generated from individual women and their reported experience of menopause inside and outside the workplace (for example Beck, Brewis and Davies, 2020; Atkinson et al, 2021b), or managers of different genders regarding their attitudes or experience of training to support menopause at work (for example Hardy, Griffiths and Hunter, 2019). A central insight that traverses this work to date is that menopause is a site of gendered ageism (see, for example, Riach, Loretto and Krekula, 2015). This mode of inequality is socially constituted, situated and marked in multiple ways by relations between people and crucially also by the gendered and gendering dynamics of organizational life (Jack, Riach and Bariola, 2019). Reflecting on this insight, our chapter presents the findings of a small study that seeks to understand how men may engage with menopause at work with two particular foci in mind. First, to shed light on menopause equality work as a relational phenomenon based on the perspectives of a sample of male respondents. And second, to consider the prospective possibilities and challenges for men to act as workplace allies for working women going through menopause and to promote inclusive workplace environments.