Project Summary
Project title: AIDS Campaigning between the Global South and Western Europe since the 1980s
Project Lead: Dr Nikolaos Papadogiannis, University of Stirling
Funded by a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship
Website: https://www.stir.ac.uk/research/hub/contract/1903033
Medical humanities research, namely interdisciplinary research in humanities and social sciences studying the links between society and health, is often biased: it focuses on ideas from the Global Northwest or doesn’t consider the importance of movements started by people of colour all over the world. Along with this, studies of global protest cultures have only recently started to try to include the different experiences and voices of people around the world, especially those in Western Europe and the Global South who are facing racism, sexism, and homophobia. So, there is a risk of ignoring the fact that people of colour can help fight against social divisions and differences in health between the Global North and South. This is a very important thing to think about right now. Recent data (Platt, 2021; NCBI, 2020) show that AIDS and COVID hurt black people the most around the world. In the meantime, queer people of colour face persistent prejudice across the globe due to their sexual orientation, race, and in some cases, gender identity and religion (Stonewall, 2019).
My research vision is to significantly contribute to an emerging movement of scholars, labelled the critical medical humanities. These researchers try to shed light on understudied social hierarchies in medical humanities and fix this geopolitical gap by bringing in views from outside the West. In particular, my project shows the unexplored importance of AIDS campaigns that have been going on in the Global South since the 1980s for relevant group action in Western Europe. In demonstrating the underexamined importance of various activists of colour, migrants and postmigrants, queer and heterosexual, in connecting HIV/AIDS campaigners in Western Europe and the Global South, my proposed research diversifies research on protest cultures but also on sexuality and race. This study will show how campaigners in the Global South and between the Global South and the Global North are connected, while taking into account their geopolitical limits. My long-term goal is for the FLF to lead to a model study of health activism in general, including efforts to fight major diseases like AIDS, COVID, and HPV. To this end, I aim to co-establish with scholars from the Global South and the Global North a Research Centre for the Study of Health Activism.
This project also aims to have a significant impact beyond academia. The results of this study will enable me to make health campaigns in the UK more inclusive, which will help them reach more people from black and queer communities. The objective to make health campaigns more inclusive is crucial to engaging more efficiently with black communities in terms of HIV prevention and treatment and, in turn, contributing to the mission of the WHO, the Global Fund and UNAIDS to eradicate HIV transmission by 2030. Inclusive HIV campaigns are also crucial to improving the well-being of black people and, more broadly, people of colour living with HIV.
The FLF will also let me develop an impact on social welfare through fair partnerships with the Global South and NGOs involving people of colour. In this vein, I will work with South Africa’s creative economy to make a documentary about AIDS that will feature local queer activists and help South Africa’s queer groups deal with social prejudice.
The project team gratefully acknowledges the support of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), without whose support this project would not be possible. You can find the project page here: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=MR%2FY015878%2F1#/tabOverview
