New book explores HIV response

A new book by Dr Jennifer Power details the history of Australia’s response to AIDS with a focus on the role the gay community played in establishing a community-driven public health response.

Power, a research fellow at La Trobe University’s Bouverie Centre, argues in Movement, Knowledge, Emotion: Gay activism and HIV/AIDS in Australia that AIDS activism contributed to improving social attitudes towards gay men and lesbians at a time when negativity towards homosexuality was receiving a lot of mainstream airplay.

Power’s book explores how AIDS activism carved out a role for affected communities to play in the public health system and looks at the part the gay community occupied in the social, medical and political response to the virus. The book also explores how HIV/AIDS came to be a defining issue in the history of gay and lesbian rights in Australia.

INFO: Available as an ebook from www.epress.anu.edu.au/gay_activism_citation.html