AIDS Campaigning between the Global South and Western Europe since the 1980s
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Funded by Medical Research Council.
Collaboration with Africa Advocacy Foundation (AAF), Ashoka University, Bishopsgate Institute, CeDInCI - Center for Documentation and Research on Left-Wing Culture, Diamond Harbour Women's University, European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG), Goethe University Frankfurt, Humboldt University Berlin, Lebanese American University (LAU), The National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, University of Copenhagen, University of Edinburgh, University of Leeds, University of Manchester, University of Strathclyde, University of Texas At Austin, University of the Witwatersrand, Virginia Commonwealth University and Waverley Care.
My research vision is to significantly contribute to the emerging field of Critical Medical Humanities research. Medical Humanities is an interdisciplinary field that uses diverse research methods from health, social care, arts and humanities disciplines to explore experiences of health and illness in society. Historically such studies are often biased: focussing on ideas from the Global Northwest and excluding the importance of movements started by people of colour all over the world. Medical Humanities researchers try to shed light on understudied social hierarchies, uncovering subjective, hidden, or invisible experience and fix this geopolitical gap by bringing in views from outside the West.
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 queer people of colour can help fight against social divisions and differences in health between the Global North and South.
Critical Medical Humanities offers different ways of thinking about human history, culture, behaviour and experience which can be used to consider healthcare practices and priorities. 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 Future Leaders Fellowship research programme will examine the unexplored importance of AIDS campaigns that have been conducted in the Global South since the 1980s for relevant Group Action in Western Europe. In demonstrating the importance of various queer activists of colour, migrants and post-migrants, in connecting 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, taking into account their geopolitical limits. My research will involve people of colour through fair partnerships with the Global South and NGOs. The results of this study could make health campaigns in the UK and overseas more inclusive, which will help them reach more people from black and queer communities. By featuring local queer activists in creative outputs, we aim to help queer groups deal with social prejudice. My long-term goal is to establish a Research Centre on Health Activism, including efforts to fight major diseases like AIDS, COVID, and HPV.
Total award value £1,608,551.00