The politics of marginalization: The appropriation of AIDS prevention messages among injection drug users

Journal/Book: Cult Med Psychiat. 1995; 19: Spuiboulevard 50, PO Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, Netherlands. Kluwer Academic Publ. 425-452.

Abstract: This essay addresses the space between a cultural critique and a class analysis of HIV transmission. It explores how injection drug users, as a disempowered group, resist hegemony through dissent. Distrust of the medical establishment and severe social and legal constraints force injection drug users to reconstruct the AIDS message. Economic and political survival inflates the need for trust and reciprocity within their social network. This makes the meaning of AIDS a continually ambiguous one for drug users. The ways in which dissent to domination is enacted and the effect this has on HIV prevention is explored.

Note: Article MM Connors, Harvard Univ, Sch Med, Dept Social Med, 641 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02115 USA

Keyword(s): UNITED-STATES; RISK; HIV; RACE; RESISTANCE; COMMUNITY; PEOPLE

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