Once Upon A Virus

227 Pages·2004·1.28 MB·English

by  Diane Goldstein

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Once Upon a Virus
AIDS Legends and Vernacular
Risk Perception

Once Upon a Virus
AIDS Legends and Vernacular
Risk Perception
•••••
Diane E. Goldstein
Utah State University Press
Logan, Utah
Copyright © 2004 Utah State University Press
All rights reserved
Utah State University Press
7800 Old Main Hill
Logan, Utah 84322-7800
Manufactured in the United States of America
Printed on acid-free paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Goldstein, Diane E.
Once upon a virus : AIDS legends and vernacular risk perception / Diane E.
Goldstein.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-87421-586-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) -- ISBN 0-87421-587-0 (pbk. : alk.
paper)
1. AIDS (Disease)--Newfoundland. 2. Risk perception. 3. Health behavior. 4.
AIDS (Disease)--Folklore. I. Title.
RA643.86.C22N494 2004
614.5’99392’09718--dc22
2004010414
To
the memory of
Kenneth S. Goldstein
and
David Buchan
and to
the people of Conception Bay North
and people everywhere
who have been stigmatized by illness

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction
Philosophizing in a War Zone xiii
1 “Tag, You’ve Got AIDS”
HIV in Folklore and Legend 1
AIDS Folklore and Disease in Popular Discourse
AIDS Folklore in Newfoundland
The People and the Place
Resources and Their Management
Trust and Community
Medical Care and Public Health in Newfoundland
AIDS in Newfoundland
2 Bad People and Body Fluids
Contemporary Legend and AIDS Discourse 24
Enacting Legends, Ostension, and Health Behaviors
Legend and Vernacular Concerns about Health
Situated Legends and Emergent Meaning
Tainted Food and Contaminated Spaces
The Deliberate Infecting “Other”
The Number and Names Game
Conspiracy Theory
3 Making Sense
Narrative and the Development of Culturally
Appropriate Health Education 55
Fact vs. Behavior
Risk Perception
Health Belief, Vernacular Theory, and Behavior Change
Illness and Narrativity
4 What Exactly Did They Do with
That Monkey, Anyway?
Contemporary Legend, Scientifi c Speculation, and
the Politics of Blame in the Search for AIDS Origins 77
Theories of AIDS Origins
Animal Theories
Isolated-Case Theories
Laboratory-Virus Theory
5 Welcome to the Innocent World of AIDS
Cultural Viability, Localization, and
Contemporary Legend 100
6 “Billy Ray Virus”
The Folk Creation and Offi cial Maintenance
of a Public Health Scapegoat 116
The Events
Legend and the Law
AIDS in Conception Bay North
The Trial
The Ray Corpus
Public Health and the Stigmatized Community
Conclusion
Epilogue
7 “Banishing All the Spindles from the Kingdom”
Reading Needle-Prick Narratives as Resistance 139
Contemporary Pinprick Narratives
Precursors
Legend as Cultural Critique and Agency
8 Once Upon a Virus
Public Health and Narrative as a Proactive Form 157
The “Know Your Partner” Message
Lay Risk Assessment and the Problem of Perceived Susceptibility
Mechanisms for Risk Assessments
The Question of Authority
What the Taletellers Know That Public Health Does Not
Once Upon a Virus
Appendix
Index to Legends and Legend Types 179
References Cited 182
Index 201
Acknowledgments
More than any other part of the writing process for this book, the
part that I have dreaded the most has been the acknowledg-
ments. When one has felt so continually surrounded by supportive
and helpful people, it becomes nearly impossible to feel confi dent
that everyone who deserves to be thanked will make it safely onto
the pages of appreciation. To those whom I should have mentioned
here and did not, I extend my apologies. Please know that I am
nevertheless indebted to you for your insights, encouragement, and
assistance. Those who are mentioned here should in no way, how-
ever, be held accountable for any errors (of fact or judgement) these
pages may contain.
I am grateful to a number of agencies that generously helped
to fund this research. The Institute for Social and Economic Re-
search funded the early years of the AIDS project and provided seed
support for the fi eldwork and media analysis. The Social Science
and Humanities Research Council funded the latter years of this
work and continues to support my ongoing study of legends and
vernacular health discourse. The Offi ce of the Dean of Arts and the
Offi ce of Research at Memorial University provided assistance with
travel funding, which allowed me to discuss these issues with other
scholars in both folklore and public health. The Folklore Depart-
ment at Memorial provided occasional graduate research assistants,
which made an enormous difference in my ability to handle the large
amounts of material that ultimately became part of this project.
An earlier version of chapter 5 was published in Contemporary
Legend 2 (1992): 23–40. Thank you to editor Cathy Preston for
permission to reprint portions of that article here. Thank you also
to Kevin Tobin (KT) for granting permission to reprint his edito-
rial cartoon originally published in the Evening Telegram. I wish to
express my appreciation to John Alley and the staff at USU Press for
expertly guiding this manuscript through the review and publication
process.
This book would not have been written without the help of
those individuals who allowed themselves to be interviewed, fi lled
ix