268 - Thematic Session. HIV/AIDS, Politics, and Social Movements

Session Submission Type: Invited Session

Abstract

Since the first reported cases over 30 years ago, HIV/AIDS continues to be fraught in the public imagination in part because of its relationship to weighty and contentious social issues such as sex, sexuality, drugs, class, race, gender, and the persistent inequalities that disparately shape individuals’ exposure to harm. Several groups have mobilized during the epidemic’s history to not only fight the medical condition but also its stigmatized associations that limited funding for research, prevention education, and treatment in the early years. In this session, participants will analyze the evolving study of AIDS politics and discuss some of the latest political and legal issues facing those living with, or at higher risk of contracting, HIV/AIDS infection. Special attention will be paid to the rise and fall of AIDS organizations, cross-national differences in AIDS politics, and the latest developments in the legal sphere, including HIV disclosure laws, that seek to regulate sex.

Sub Unit

• Thematic Sessions

Session Organizer

• Celeste M. Watkins-Hayes, Northwestern University

Presider

• Deborah B. Gould, University of California-Santa Cruz

Panelists

• Trevor Alexander Hoppe, University of California-Irvine

• Benita Roth, State University of New York-Binghamton

• Shari Lee Dworkin, University of California-San Francisco

Discussant

• Deborah B. Gould, University of California-Santa Cruz