Acting on AIDS [Paperback]

Josh Oppenheimer (Author), Helena Reckitt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2000

This work stems from an international conference at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, in collaboation with the Terrence Higgins Trust in March 1996. Contributors come from a range of disciplines such as political, medical, social, artistic and cultural.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Serpent's Tail (May 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1852425539
• ISBN-13: 978-1852425531
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,201,798 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why do people continue to put themsleves at risks..., December 20, 2000

By 

Samuel (Paris France) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Acting on AIDS (Paperback)

"Why do people continue to put themselves at risk when they know what they need to do to protect themselves?" To this question, and to many others, Acting on AIDS gives accurate and disturbing answers.

The book is the result of the three-day Acting on AIDS conference (London 1996). "The event brought together activists, cultural critics, artists, policy makers from the UK, US, Africa, and Europe to build alliances, reinvigorate strategy, and set new goals in the community response to AIDS (...) The volume is committed to the idea that a politics of health can be forged only through an understanding of the epidemic's multiple contexts: epidemiological, medical, social, sexual, racial, global, economic, and psychological."

The book is composed as follow: "The first section, Science and Safety, highlights the interface of medical research and HIV prevention. Tim Rhodes critiques the ways epidemiology understands risk among drug users. Simon Watney stresses the need for epidemiologists and statisticians to face the political and ethical implications of their work (...) The second section, Prevention: New Directions, raises hard questions about the roles of beauty, identity and honesty in safer sex messages. It seeks to suggest possible solutions to AIDS education's most disturbing aporia; why do people continue to put themselves at risk when they know what they need to do to protect themselves? (...) The volume's third section, Diaspora and Globalisation, explores issues at the junction of cultural and racial contexts and differences, and globalizing institutions and discourses(...) The fourth section, Traditions of Activism both questions the changing roles of different activist strategies and provides grassroots counter-memories of the epidemic in relation to social change (...) The fifth and last section Voices from the Front, articulates the complex realities of AIDS as they are lived every day. This section reminds us that there is nothing noble about suffering, nothing fashionable about the epidemic." These are pieces about dying and about survival"

Considering the impact that book had on me I cannot but encourage you to read it. It is easy to read and accessible to everyone. I warmly recommend:

T. Rhodes Risk, injecting drug use and the myth of an objective social science M. Watney The political significance of statistics in the AIDS crisis: epidemiology, representation and re-gaying M Bronsky's Why gay men still have unsafe sex: beauty, self-esteem, and the myth of HIV negativity D.Mukasa African communities living with HIV in Britain: inequality and injustice M.Harrington Some transition in the history of AIDS treatment activism E.K.Sedgwick Gary Fisher in your pocket