We are a group of Canadian and South African researchers, educators and students who are members of the Gendering Adolescent AIDS Prevention (GAAP) project. We are looking to link up with others who are interested in exploring transnational perspectives on HIV/AIDS and youth.
As an international health issue, HIV/AIDS is addressed at the level of global institutions (e.g. WHO), within national policy, and local (government and non-governmental) sites in which education and treatment programs are implemented. Cross-cultural approaches provide comparative information and national profiles of the disease, but these are based on generalized criteria that do not reflect the specific ways in which HIV/AIDS is understood locally or the relations of power and hierarchy that shape the constructions of HIV/AIDS, globally, locally and nationally. A transnational approach allows us to understand the links between these different sites. It understands representations of HIV/AIDS in terms of local norms of culture, gender, age categories and sexuality as well as in relation to national and international politics. It also seeks to understand how HIV/AIDS, in any particular national or local site, is shaped by the inequalities of global capitalism, patriarchy and racism. Similarly, a transnational activist approach does not assume a shared, global understanding of the issues, but works to develop strategies that speak to the different constructions of youth and HIV/AIDS and are relevant across national and cultural boundaries.
Building on the growing body of transnational analysis and practice, we are interested in exploring the following kinds of questions:
- To what extent are local cultural ideas about youth, gender and sexuality reflected in – or ignored by - national HIV/AIDS policy?
- How are global discourses on HIV/AIDS and youth (such as human rights or the education of the girl child) reflected in national policies and NGO programs, and to what extent do funding relations between donors and recipients structure national programs?
- How do representations of HIV/AIDS amongst youth vary along the lines of gender, race, ethnicity and class, and within and across national and cultural contexts? What are the implications of these differences for education and policy, and for transnational networking?
- What is the impact and prospects of global information technologies in youth HIV/AIDS awareness programs? How might these technologies be deployed effectively, in ways that challenge globally dominant frameworks and acknowledge different local constructions of the disease?
- What kinds of initiatives in youth and HIV/AIDS education have proved effective in working across cultural differences, and how can youth activists translate these in building transnational networks?
For more information, contact June Larkin.