Herringer BM; International Conference on AIDS.
Int Conf AIDS. 1996 Jul 7-12; 11: 46 (abstract no. We.D.246).
University of Northern British Columbia Faculty of Health and Human Sciences, Prince George, EC. Fax: (604)960-5536. E-mail: barbara@unbc.edu.
Objective: While incidence rates of AIDS-related suicide are not currently available it is nevertheless spoken of as "clinically commonplace". The project sought to examine: Do gay men "kill" themselves or are they "killed" by the organization of their disease; that is do the institutional and professional practices and knowledge surrounding AIDS and AIDS-related death construct meanings that people with AIDS both internalize and respond to? Methods: Using a method of data gathering and analysis known as institutional ethnography the rift between the experiences of people living with HIV/AIDS and those close to them and the official AIDS discourse and practice of professional experts was examined. Information about this gap was gathered by investigating the narratives and accounts of those people living with AIDS who have taken their own lives accounts of those who have intimate connections with them as well as government professional and ASO reports and documents. Results: While it is individual persons with HIV/AIDS who will decide whether to take their own lives depending on the circumstances in which they find themselves a strategy for making visible the socially produced problems that may contextualize these decisions such as stigma homosexuality and myths about "a good death" is articulated. Conclusions: The study illustrates the importance of beginning from the standpoint of persons living with HIV/AIDS to examine issues of living and dying within the context of their lives. It also shows how contemporary forms of knowledge about HIV/AIDS and suicide are constructed as part of social and institutional processes.
Publication Types:
Keywords:
- Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
- Death
- Government
- HIV Infections
- HIV Seropositivity
- Homosexuality
- Homosexuality, Male
- Humans
- Male
- Organizations
- Suicide
Other ID:
UI: 102219215
From Meeting Abstracts