Epidemic imaginary : performing global figurations of "Third World AIDS"
Document Type
Journal article
Source Publication
Space and Culture
Publication Date
11-1-2006
Volume
9
Issue
4
First Page
429
Last Page
452
Keywords
Mediascape, Mobile figurations, Postnationalism, Thailand, Third World AIDS
Abstract
This article is a narrative experiment written in the hope of illuminating "Third World AIDS" less as a geographically situated pandemic than as dispersed and dispersing encounters of mobile figurations. Using HIV/AIDS in Thailand as a case, the author argues that to move beyond the dominant understanding of "Third World AIDS" today - influenced mainly by epidemiology and anthropology - we need to attend to a mobile mediascape that manages to bypass the medicoethnographic sphere to invest in discursive encounters, awaiting framing and materialization. As such, this article posits the performative movement of figurative imagination as an alternative materiality, one that engages with the "diseased other" ethically and postnationally. While AIDS rages on in the 21st century, the narrative/figurative encounters staged in this article continue to present an uneasy picture about nation, gender, (queer) sex, activism, and power.
DOI
10.1177/1206331206292448
Print ISSN
12063312
E-ISSN
15528308
Publisher Statement
Copyright © 2006 Sage Publications
Access to external full text or publisher's version may require subscription.
Full-text Version
Publisher’s Version
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Erni, J. N. (2006). Epidemic imaginary: Performing global figurations of "Third World AIDS". Space and Culture, 9(4), 429-452. doi: 10.1177/1206331206292448