Wounded bodies and illness narratives: a history of attitudes and behaviour towards HIV-positive homosexual men in New Zealand between 1983 and 1997

Ware, Cheryl Anne

Wounded bodies and illness narratives: a history of attitudes and behaviour towards HIV-positive homosexual men in New Zealand between 1983 and 1997

dc.contributor.advisor	Coleborne, Catharine
dc.contributor.author	Ware, Cheryl Anne
dc.date.accessioned	2012-08-16T00:13:33Z
dc.date.available	2012-08-16T00:13:33Z
dc.date.issued	2011
dc.date.updated	2012-02-14T04:21:00Z
dc.description.abstract	New Zealand had its first case of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in 1983, two years after the disease was identified in America. The HIV/AIDS epidemic devastated a society that was unprepared for the social and medical implications of a deadly disease, and many New Zealanders were thrust into a state of moral panic. This thesis contributes to New Zealand’s social and cultural histories of health and illness by examining individual homosexual men’s experiences living with HIV/AIDS. It examines the previously untold individual experiences of homosexual men with HIV/AIDS as discussed in their life narrative interviews. The thesis considers that while these men’s experiences are individually subjective, dominant thematic threads emerge across the narratives which indicate patterns in gay men’s experiences with HIV/AIDS in New Zealand. Homosexual men with HIV/AIDS faced the double stigma of being gay in a society that condemned homosexuality, and living with a previously terminal disease. Images of homosexual men as ‘guilty’, and ‘deviant’ were spread through public channels including newspaper and magazine articles, which fuelled pre-existing anti-homosexual feelings. By drawing on the men’s individual narratives, the thesis describes and analyses the negotiations that occur between their individual and collective memories. The participants used their individual narratives both to obtain agency, and also to dispel derogatory archetypes that have been constructed about homosexual men. These men’s individual narratives have not previously been recorded, and are valuable to New Zealand history because they offer first-hand accounts of the patients’ experiences living with HIV/AIDS in New Zealand.
dc.format.mimetype	application/pdf
dc.identifier.citation	Ware, C. A. (2011). Wounded bodies and illness narratives: a history of attitudes and behaviour towards HIV-positive homosexual men in New Zealand between 1983 and 1997 (Thesis, Master of Arts (MA)). University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10289/6587	en
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/10289/6587
dc.language.iso	en
dc.publisher	University of Waikato
dc.rights	All items in Research Commons are provided for private study and research purposes and are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated.
dc.subject	HIV/AIDS
dc.subject	Illness narratives
dc.subject	Oral history
dc.subject	Homosexual men
dc.subject	Collective memory
dc.subject	Stigma
dc.subject	Disease
dc.title	Wounded bodies and illness narratives: a history of attitudes and behaviour towards HIV-positive homosexual men in New Zealand between 1983 and 1997	en
dc.type	Thesis
pubs.place-of-publication	Hamilton, New Zealand	en_NZ
thesis.degree.grantor	University of Waikato
thesis.degree.level	Masters
thesis.degree.name	Master of Arts (MA)