Doctoral Dissertation Research: Masculinity and AIDS in Urban Uganda

该项目探讨了艾滋病在非洲的社会影响，研究了这一流行病如何影响两性关系。具体而言，该项目的问题是：艾滋病流行如何影响乌干达首都坎帕拉的男子气概概念？该项目的实地研究包括12个月的人种学参与观察，比较坎帕拉内的两个社区。该项目调查了这些社区中关于男子气概的话语，并询问男子和妇女如何理解自己与当前关于男子气概的观念的关系。这项研究还旨在阐明这种自我理解如何塑造他们与艾滋病毒/艾滋病的接触。通过绘制艾滋病对男性气质的影响，该项目提供了深入了解性行为的文化逻辑，并可能有助于阐明性别关系如何与乌干达艾滋病毒流行率下降有关。它通过分析艾滋病流行如何塑造男子气概的概念，将以前关于非洲男子气概的研究扩展到新的领域。虽然该项目将澄清当今坎帕拉的男子气概是如何生活的，但其调查结果也将为更普遍地了解艾滋病的社会影响提供宝贵的参考点。这项研究还探讨了关于男子气概的规范如何变化，这是一个在男性气质文献中仍然不发达的领域。该项目的更广泛影响包括以下几点。 通过关注乌干达城市，该项目扩大了非洲声音在美国社会学中的参与，作为研究对象，研究助理和学术同事。此外，该项目旨在说明在非洲环境中进行的研究如何与性别、性和社会变革等核心社会学问题相关。该项目的广泛影响部分来自艾滋病流行病的全球性以及广泛分享研究成果的必要性。通过研讨会和会议，这项研究将与非洲研究，人类学和公共卫生的同事分享。通过以大众媒体和决策者最熟悉的方式介绍这一研究，该项目的结果旨在达到学术界以外的广大受众。 该项目由社会学项目和国际科学与工程办公室共同资助。

This project explores the social impact of AIDS in Africa, examining how the epidemic is shaping gender relations. Specifically, this project asks: how is the AIDS epidemic affecting conceptions of masculinity in Kampala, Uganda's capital city? The field research for this project consists of twelve months of ethnographic participant observation, comparing two communities within Kampala. The project investigates discourses about masculinity in these communities and asks how men, and women, understand themselves in relation to current ideas about manhood. The research also aims to illuminate how such self-understandings shape their encounters with HIV/AIDS. By charting the impact of AIDS on masculinity, this project provides insight into the cultural logic animating sexual behavior, and may help illuminate how gender relations are connected to declining HIV prevalence in Uganda. It extends previous research on masculinity in Africa into new territory by analyzing how the AIDS epidemic is shaping conceptions of manhood. While this project will clarify how masculinity is lived in Kampala today, its findings will also provide a valuable reference point for understanding the social impact of AIDS more generally. The research also probes how norms about manhood change, an area that remains underdeveloped in the masculinity literature. The broaer impacts of this project include the following. By focusing on urban Uganda, this project broadens the participation of African voices in American sociology, as research subjects, research assistants, and academic colleagues. In addition, this project aims to show how research conducted in an African setting is relevant to core sociological issues such as gender, sexuality and social change. The broader impacts of this project derive, in part, from global nature of the AIDS pandemic and the need for the results of this research to be shared widely. Through workshops and conferences this research will be shared with colleagues in African studies, anthropology, and public health. By presenting this research in ways most familiar to the mass media and policy-makers, the results of this project are intended to reach a large audience beyond academia. This proposal was cofunded by the Sociology Program and the Office of International Science and Engineering.