Abstract
… rejected on the grounds that this has been adequately researched and actioned through the HIV/AIDS Foundation, Family Planning and Rainbow Youth with Government involvement and funding being made available.
This is the response received to a remit calling for increased action to resource HIV & AIDS education for New Zealand women, especially young women. How to respond? This paper uses autoethnography to describe my own personal journey of discovery into the world of HIV and AIDS. It describes and explores the social awarenesses, social attitudes, stigma and discrimination that have existed, and still prevail, towards this silent menace. Through autoethnography I also honour and acknowledge those who have generously ‘given’ of their time and their awhi to share the ways in which they, as Positive people, have touched my life, to instill in me the passion and conviction each and every one matters. The aim is to not only enhance the reader’s knowledge and understanding of the medical discourse that surrounds this disease, but to contextualize the position of being Positive in a ‘negative’ world. Further, I attempt to demonstrate how reflexivity of the contexts within which this disease is located hinders and/or helps in its ongoing transmission. From this ‘position’ I begin the research process to argue that ‘one woman, is one too many’.
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Notes
- 1.
Human Immunodeficiency Virus.
- 2.
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.
- 3.
Gay-Related Immune Disease.
- 4.
Eve van Grafhorst, an Australian girl, was infected through a blood transfusion, denied schooling unless she wore a facemask. Her family emigrated to NZ. Eve passed November 23, 1993 aged 11 years (Top Shelf Productions, 1994).
- 5.
‘Positive People’, ‘People Living With HIV/AIDS’, ‘PLWHA’, ‘PLWA’, ‘People Living Positively’: terms used to describe people living with the HIV virus.
- 6.
World AIDS Day, observed December 1 each year, is a day dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV infection.
- 7.
Quilt making: ‘To build upon the memory of those our communities have lost to HIV, to arm our people with knowledge, understanding and respect, and to help create a more aware and compassionate environment’ (Mission, New Zealand AIDS Memorial Quilt, n.d., ¶ 4).
- 8.
The focus for this paper is HIV/AIDS, and attitudes towards HIV/AIDS. In 2011, there are many women’s NGOs involved internationally, regionally and/or nationally as advocates in the fight against HIV/AIDS; I do not wish to highlight the work of only one agency.
- 9.
This story demonstrates a ‘typical’ training workshop held to ensure advocates are fully conversant of the social factors that contribute to the spread of HIV.
- 10.
Antiretroviral drugs are combined together to create Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART).
- 11.
Serodiscordant is a term used to describe a couple in which one partner is HIV positive and the other is HIV negative. Serodiscordant relationships are also referred to as ‘magnetic’. The term seroconcordant is its antonym, used to describe a couple in which both partners are of the same HIV status (i.e. both are HIV positive or both are HIV negative).
- 12.
The HIV epidemic is shaped by environmental factors such as social and cultural norms, beliefs and values, and the political context, institutions and networks (Kadasia, 2011).
- 13.
CD4 cells have molecules on the cell surface that assist the body’s immune system. CD4 cells also serve as hosts for the HIV retrovirus. A CD4 test counts the number of functioning CD4 cells providing an indication of the strength of the immune health system. A healthy human has CD4 counts of 600–1,200 cells per cubic mm blood.
- 14.
Auckland Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender (GLBT)/Queer Youth Support Service.
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Hayes, L. (2014). One Woman, One Too Many. In: Rinehart, R., Barbour, K., Pope, C. (eds) Ethnographic Worldviews. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6916-8_10
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