HIVAIDS Social Stigma and Visual Art

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to examine the development and progression of HIV/AIDS stigma within a social structure of power and powerlessness from the early 1980s to the 2010s, through a case study of selected visual images. I focus on the social aspect of how HIV/AIDS is given social stigmas that cause as much suffering as the disease’s physical health effects. To do this, I apply Erving Goffman’s theory on stigma and analyzing visual images from the early 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s to consider how HIV/AIDS has been constructed and reinforced through time. In considering the historical context I show that each of these images responds to stigma as it existed in the early 1980s but also in the ways that it exists today.