Medicine,Illness And Body:Narratives Of Gay Male Living With HIV/AIDS

Most studies about gay males living with HIV/AIDS in mainland China focus on medical treatment and de-stigmatization,qualitative works descripting illness are less found.On intensive interview with 11 gay males living with HIV/AIDS,drawing on Foucauldian governmentality,this study tries to answer the following questions:1)how HIV/AIDS and the side-effects of HARRT influence informants' health,social connection and lifecycle,2)how informants deal with these influences and reconstruct identity,and 3)how informants internalize and/or resist medical technologies as discipline.This study has found that,though HARRT has changed fatal AIDS into a kind of chronical disease,gay males infected with HIV also suffer enduring illness that virus and treatment has brought out,which limited their social relation and self-achievement.However,they are also cumulating experiences and helping self and peers overcome difficulties,in which the body is not only a carrier of virus or an object of medical knowledge,but also shows subjectivity and agency.There are three potential contributions in the study.Firstly and theoretically,drawing on governmentality,this study tries to integrate the structural(disease and disciplines technologies)and agential(illness and individual experiences)social dynamics to bridge the discourses of biomedicine and medical sociology.Secondly,the study has recorded and analyzed narratives of gay male living with HIV/AIDS,enriching the qualitative studies.Thirdly and practically,the findings can provide advice to the national system of HIV/AIDS intervention,especially the medical policies on people living with HIV/AIDS.