Abstract
This chapter examines the spaces where HIV status is disclosed and the spaces of discrimination as perceived and experienced by Indian people. A spatial approach is applied to garner the understandings of what makes different spaces accessible/inaccessible, empowering/disempowering and personal/impersonal to disclose an HIV status. Further, we explore time and gender differences in disclosure in the said spaces. Stigma, referred to as an attribute deeply discrediting by Goffman, is understood with the elements of it being feared and enacted. In this chapter, we look at both the perceived and enacted spatiality of discrimination. These spaces include institutional, social, family/kin and interpersonal spaces. We base this chapter on two studies carried out in India in community and institutional settings. The data comprise of ethnographic interviews, focus groups and observations. By focussing on the spatiality of disclosure and discrimination, we do not want just to describe these spaces but make an effort to see how people affected in these spaces can be empowered to manage disclosure and fight discrimination.
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Notes
- 1.
Married men were selected as they are seen as bridge population who transfer the HIV virus from the high-risk group (sex workers) to low-risk groups (women attending antenatal clinics).
- 2.
In some cases, the participants felt comfortable to talk about some other person as this would be too confronting to admit to the interviewer directly.
- 3.
Names used in these case studies are pseudonyms.
- 4.
The immediate family members were the ones who provided most of emotional support to the participants. These family members were the ones with whom the participants coresided.
- 5.
In this project or in the data, there is no explicit mention of caste- or religion-based discrimination.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank other researchers Dr. Ritu Parchure, Dr. Sanjeevani Kulkarni and Dr. Vinay Kulkarni of Prayas Health Group involved in the study and NIMHANS, Bangalore, for financial support through the small grant programmes for research sexuality and sexual behaviour.
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Bailey, A., Darak, S. (2013). Spaces of Disclosure and Discrimination: Case Studies from India. In: Liamputtong, P. (eds) Stigma, Discrimination and Living with HIV/AIDS. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6324-1_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6324-1_13
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