Doctoral Dissertation Research: Masculinity and AIDS in Urban Uganda

这个项目探讨了艾滋病在非洲的社会影响，考察了这种流行病是如何塑造性别关系的。具体地说，这个项目的问题是：艾滋病的流行如何影响乌干达首都坎帕拉的男性观念？该项目的实地研究包括为期12个月的人种学参与者观察，对坎帕拉的两个社区进行比较。该项目调查了这些社区中关于男性气概的话语，并询问男性和女性如何理解自己与当前对男性气概的看法。这项研究还旨在阐明这种自我理解如何影响他们与艾滋病毒/艾滋病的接触。通过绘制艾滋病对男子气概的影响图表，该项目提供了对激发性行为的文化逻辑的洞察，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的下降有关。它通过分析艾滋病流行病是如何塑造男子气概的，将之前关于非洲男子气概的研究扩展到了新的领域。虽然该项目将阐明当今坎帕拉男子气概是如何生活的，但其发现也将为更广泛地理解艾滋病的社会影响提供有价值的参考点。这项研究还探讨了关于男子气概的规范是如何改变的，这是男子气概文献中仍然不发达的一个领域。该项目的主要影响包括以下几个方面。通过关注乌干达城市，这个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，该项目旨在展示在非洲环境中进行的研究如何与性别、性和社会变化等核心社会学问题相关。该项目的更广泛影响部分源于艾滋病大流行的全球性，以及需要广泛分享这项研究的结果。通过研讨会和会议，这项研究将与非洲研究、人类学和公共卫生领域的同事分享。通过以大众媒体和政策制定者最熟悉的方式介绍这项研究，该项目的结果旨在接触到学术界以外的广大受众。这项提议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.