Dissertation Research: Narratives of Living with HIV: Accountability, Community and the Transformation of Suffering

该项目将通过人们的叙述和生活史来调查艾滋病患者对自己病情的解释与促进应对的因素之间的关系，例如寻求社会支持和开始自我治疗。审查的解释的关键方面包括问责制（解释感染的原因以及是否应该为此负责）和社区构建（将自己与其他艾滋病毒阳性个体联系起来）。印第安纳波利斯在社会和政治上的保守，以及缺乏政治上强大的同性恋社区，加剧了与艾滋病有关的同性恋恐惧症和耻辱，使其成为艾滋病疫情中心以外艾滋病患者的典型经历。这项研究将通过展示话语如何将个人与强大的制度领域联系起来，从而为文化人类学做出贡献。它将通过探索人们如何使用社区的“消极”和“积极”方面来构建身份，从而为美国民族志做出贡献。最后，它将通过将关于艾滋病毒感染的“说话方式”与艾滋病毒感染者的战略和选择联系起来，为艾滋病研究和医学界作出贡献。

This project will investigate, through people's narratives and life histories, how AIDS patients' interpretations of their condition relates to factors facilitating coping, such as seeking social support and initiating self-treatment. Key aspects of interpretation examined include accountability (explaining the cause of infections and whether one is to blame for it) and constructs of community (relating one's self to other HIV+ individuals). Indianapolis' social and political conservatism and absence of a politically powerful gay community heighten the homophobia and stigma associated with AIDS, making it more typical of experiences of AIDS patients outside the epidemic's epicenters. This study will contribute to cultural anthropology by demonstrating how discourses link individuals with powerful institutional domains. It will contribute to American ethnography by exploring how people use "negative" and "positive" aspects of community in constructing identities. Lastly, it will contribute to AIDS research and the medical community by connecting "ways of speaking" about HIV infection and strategies and choices for living with it.