DE INDRE GRÆNSER: Forestillinger om kultur og subkultur i sociale konstruktioner af hiv/aids i Danmark

Abstract

Steffen Johncke: The Boundaries Within.

Ideas about Culture and Subculture in

Social Constructions of HIV/AIDS in

Denmark.

Based on two studies with practical purposes,

this article presents critical analyses

of some of the social and political processes

involved in the construction of “gay men”

and “immigrants” as culturally distinet

groups in relation to HIV/AIDS in Denmark.

First an evaluation of a campaign that offers

information and support to men who have

sex with men is presented. The campaign is

based with a gay organisation, and it works

from the assumption that men who have sex

with men belong to a “homosexual subculture”,

although they do so in various

degrees. This assumption is challenged by

the experiences and opinions of members of

the target group interviewed in the cause of

the evaluation. The subculture imagery,

however, coincides with a dominant construction

in Danish HIV/AIDS policy: the

distinetion between homosexual men and

the general (heterosexual) population as

separate entities. This distinetion impedes

the delivery of relevant information to all

men who have sex with men. The second

study is concemed with Danish service

providers’ view of immigrants living with

HIV in Denmark. The service providers’

characterizations of immigrants and

accounts of problems of contact are shown

to express stereotypical images of “immigrants’

cultural backgrounds”. These images

are analysed as the inverted expressions of

the social and cultural norms typical of the

clinics and offices of the Danish health and

social services. In order to improve communication

and services, the Danish staff do

not need “more knowledge of more cultures”,

as they request - rather they need to

do critical self-reflection of their relationship

with all clients and patients. The article

concludes that anthropologists need to be

wary of the role played by the concept of

“culture” in relation to HIV/AIDS where it

has become a political rather than an

analytical tool.