Sexuality, Politics and AIDS in Brazil: In Another World?

183 Pages·1993·1.78 MB·English

by  Herbet Daniel

Sexuality, Politics and AIDS in Brazil
Social Aspects of AIDS
Series Editor: Peter Aggleton
Goldsmiths’ College, University of London
Editorial Advisory Board
Dominic Abrams, University of Kent at Canterbury, UK
Dennis Altman, La Trobe University, Australia
Maxine Ankrah, Makerere University, Uganda
Mildred Blaxter, University of East Anglia, UK
Manuel Caballo, World Health Organization
Judith Cohen, University of California San Francisco, USA
Anthony Coxon, University of Essex, UK
Peter Davies, University of Essex, UK
Gary Dowsett, Macquarie University, Australia
Jan Grover, Oakland, California, USA
Graham Hart, University and Middlesex School of Medicine, London,
UK
Mukesh Kapila, Overseas Development Administration, UK
Hans Moerkerk, National Commission on AIDS Control,
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Cindy Patton, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, USA
Diane Richardson, University of Sheffield, UK
Werasit Sittitrai, Chulalongkom University, Thailand
Ron Stall, University of California San Francisco, USA
Robert Tielman, University of Utrecht, Netherlands
Simon Watney, London, UK
Jeffrey Weeks, Bristol Polytechnic, UK
Sexuality, Politics and
AIDS in Brazil
In Another World?
Herbert Daniel and Richard Parker
The Falmer Press
(A member of the Taylor & Francis Group)
London • Washington D.C.
UK The Falmer Press, 4 John Street, London, WC1N 2ET
USA The Falmer Press, Taylor & Francis Inc., 1900 Frost Road, Suite 101,
Bristol, PA 19007
© Selection and editorial material copyright Richard Parker and the Estate
of Herbert Daniel 1993
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
permission in writing from the Publisher.
First published in 1993
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British LLiibrary
ISBN 0-203-20987-7 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-26783-4 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0 75070 135 8 (Print Edition)
ISBN 0 75070 136 6 pbk
Jacket design by Caroline Archer
This book is the product of ‘quatro mãos’ (four
hands). It was in the final stages of completion
when Herbert Daniel died on 29 March 1992. It
is dedicated to Claudio Mesquita, Daniel’s
partner in life for more than twenty years.
Contents
Series Editor’s Preface viii
Note on Translation and Language x
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
Herbert DanielRichard Parker
Part 1. The Social Construction of AIDS in Brazil 5
1 AIDS in Brazil 7
Richard Parker
2 The Bankruptcy of the Models: Myths and 33
Realities of AIDS in Brazil
Herbert Daniel
3 The Third Epidemic: An Exercise in Solidarity 49
Herbert DanielRichard Parker
Part 2. Sexual Culture, Social Representations and HIV 63
Transmission
4 ‘Within Four Walls’: Brazilian Sexual Culture 65
and HIV/AIDS
Richard Parker
5 The Negotiation of Difference: Male 85
Prostitution, Bisexual Behaviour and HIV
Transmission
Richard Parker
6 After AIDS: Changes in (Homo)sexual 97
Behaviour
Richard Parker
7 The Politics of AIDS Education in Brazil 117
Richard Parker
vii
Part 3. Living with AIDS: A Personal Perspective 131
8 News from Another Life 133
Herbert Daniel
9 Above All, Life 137
Herbert Daniel
10 From the Paralysis of Fear to the Response of 147
Solidarity
Herbert Daniel
11 You’ll Never Forget Your First AZT 151
Herbert Daniel
12 The Soul of a Citizen 155
Herbert Daniel
Bibliography 157
Index 163
Series Editor’s Preface
It is increasingly recognized that research into sexual meanings,
sexual identities and sexual cultures is essential if HIV and AIDS
health promotion activities are to be well founded. For to ignore
the various ways in which people interpret and understand their
sexual lives is to run the risk of devising culturally inappropriate
and ineffective interventions. Likewise, the insights and experience
of those living with HIV disease are essential if we are to be effective
in challenging deep seated prejudices and hostilities. This insight
is vital too for the development of a more constructive politics of
AIDS—a politics which challenges efforts to marginalize, stigmatize
and discriminate, and one which insists on the involvement of
people with HIV disease in activities related to prevention and care.
All of these concerns are central to the arguments in this book.
Drawing upon nearly a decade’s experience, Herbert Daniel and
Richard Parker chart the course of the epidemic and its social
effects in Brazil. The analysis they offer is rigorous, incisive and
compelling, and derives both from social scientific research and
personal involvement in community activism around AIDS. The
authors portray graphically what it means to live with AIDS in
contemporary Brazil, and how the epidemic has impacted upon the
lives of individuals and communities.
Pointing to the inadequacy of Western models as a way of
understanding the effects of the epidemic, Sexuality, Politics and
AIDS in Brazil argues for a more sophisticated appreciation of the
ways in which sexuality is understood and lived. While its focus is
on sexual behaviour between men, and male sexual desire, the
analysis developed has more general applicability. It highlights, for
example, the limits of attempts to understand the social dynamics
of HIV and AIDS in ‘outsider’ terms —be these the categories
offered by mainstream epidemiology or those imposed by
government or state bureaucracies. Sexuality, Politics and AIDS in
Brazil points too to global inequalities in health and their impact
on individuals and communities. It makes available to a wider
ix
readership ideas central to the development of a more critical and
reflexive HIV and AIDS health promotion practice.
Peter Aggleton