Narrative voice and countering silence: Women talk about life with AIDS.
Item
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Title
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Narrative voice and countering silence: Women talk about life with AIDS.
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Identifier
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AAI3008815
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identifier
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3008815
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Creator
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Cameron, Ann Elizabeth.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Susan C. Ouellette
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Date
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2001
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Social | Psychology, Personality | Women's Studies
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Abstract
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Although women with HIV/AIDS have been identified since the beginning of the epidemic and their numbers have climbed steadily in the past two decades, until recently women were largely absent from AIDS discourse and research. When women were included, often they were categorized and studied as problems---"prostitutes," "AIDS mothers," "drug addicts"---who transmit HIV to others. Rarely were women seen as individuals who were themselves vulnerable to AIDS or as individuals with a life-threatening illness.;"Master narratives" are the cultural stories we rely on to understand ourselves and others. Social science and medicine have their own master narratives of illness and of women who have HIV/AIDS, and these are the perspectives most often represented in discourse and research. Working from a perspective of offering alternative stories, this dissertation addresses how the meanings and experiences of AIDS might "look different" if seen from the perspective of women living with this illness. Through the life stories of 12 diverse women, I explore questions such as, How are women's lives and selves affected by AIDS? What stories do women tell about their lives and about HIV/AIDS? How do women perceive, make sense of, and respond to AIDS? What are the personal, social, cultural and historical contexts that shape their experiences, meanings and stories of HIV/AIDS? What can life stories teach us, and how are they useful?;I examine women's stories concerning primary transition periods along the "AIDS trajectory." The first chapter focuses on women's diagnosis stories; the second chapter examines how women create lives that incorporate HIV/AIDS, focusing on the "healthy" period. The third chapter examines the transition to illness, as well as the meanings of health, illness and AIDS in the context of changing treatment options. In each chapter, I use Mandelbaum's (1973) life history framework to examine the turning points, adaptations and contexts most central to the women's stories, and I explore how women make use of illness narrative forms outlined by Frank (1995) in their stories. The final chapter discusses the utility of these interpretive frameworks, as well as the methodological and ethical issues raised by this project.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
