From both sides of the bed : a history of doctor and patient AIDS activism in South Africa, 1982-1984.
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Date
2004
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Abstract
This thesis explores the history of AIDS activism 'from both sides of the
bed', by doctors and gay patients, in the 1980s and early 1990s. Such AIDS
activism was formed in opposition to dominant racist and homophobic
framings of the epidemic and the AIDS-related discrimination that these
representations caused. Moreover, links between both groups of AIDS
activists have their origins in this period. This history has emerged through
oral interviews conducted with AIDS activists and an analysis of archival
material held at the South African History Archive and the Centre for Health
Policy at the University of the Witwatersrand. Evidence reveals that AIDS
activism was politically overshadowed in the 1980s by the overwhelming
need to respond to apartheid. Although the Gay Association of South Africa
(GASA) resisted AIDS-related homophobia, it was politically conservative,
which later led to its demise, and then the creation of new, more militant
anti-apartheid gay AIDS activism. By contrast, the anti-apartheid doctor
organisations such as the National Medical and Dental Association
(NAMDA) and the National Progressive Primary Health Care Network
(PPHC) were militantly anti-apartheid, but did not seriously address AIDS in
the 1980s. In the early 1990s, in the new transitional context, AIDS activists
framed the epidemic in terms of human rights to combat AIDS-related
discrimination in AIDS policy. Simultaneously, doctor activists in NAMDA
and PPHC mobilised around AIDS in the early 1990s, but both organisations
disbanded after 1994. Meanwhile, gay AIDS activists remained prominent
in AIDS activism, as some who were living with HIV adopted the strategy of
openness about their HIV status. On the other hand, AIDS-related stigma
remained widespread in the transition era with important implications for
post-apartheid AIDS activism and policy-making. Ultimately, this history
has significantly shaped post-apartheid, rights-based AIDS activism and its
recent disputes with the government over AIDS policy.
Description
Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2004.
Keywords
AIDS (Disease)--Patients--Care., AIDS (Disease)--Government policy--South Africa., AIDS (Disease)--History., AIDS (Disease)--Patients--Hospital care., AIDS (Disease)--Moral and ethical aspects--South Africa., AIDS activists--South Africa., Theses--History.