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The politics of marginalization: The appropriation of AIDS prevention messages among injection drug users

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IfI'm that fucked up where I'll put a life-threatening drug into myself knowing it's dangerous, I really can't deal with a society that's telling me I deserve it. It takes all my strenght. The moral majority says it's God's way of taking care of these things. I hear too much of that. Drug addicts don't even want to talk about it [AIDS] because of the fear. I talk to people about it and they tune out. I can see their eyes glazing over.-A recovering addict

Abstract

This essay addresses the space between a cultural critique and a class analysis of HIV transmission. It explores how injection drug users, as a disempowered group, resist hegemony through dissent. Distrust of the medical establishment and severe social and legal constraints force injection drug users to reconstruct the AIDS message. Economic and political survival inflates the need for trust and reciprocity within their social network. This makes the meaning of AIDS a continually ambiguous one for drug users. The ways in which dissent to domination is enacted and the effect this has on HIV prevention is explored.

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Connors, M.M. The politics of marginalization: The appropriation of AIDS prevention messages among injection drug users. Cult Med Psych 19, 425–452 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01379397

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