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The city government of Chicago adopted a 'racial equity' approach to tackle racial disparities in COVID-19 outcomes. Drawing on experience addressing core vulnerabilities associated with HIV risk, Chicago public health experts who designed COVID-19 mitigation initiatives recognised that the same social determinants of health drive racial disparities for both HIV and COVID-19. Yet, when building an infrastructure to respond to COVID-19, disease surveillance and data collection became the priority for investment ahead of other forms of public health work or the provision of social services. The building of a disease surveillance infrastructure that responded to and supplied data took precedence over addressing social determinants of poor health. Community-based organisations that might have otherwise organised for social service provision were incorporated into this infrastructure. Further, public health officials often failed to heed the lessons learned from their experience with HIV vulnerability. Based on qualitative analysis of 56 interviews with public health experts and policymakers in Chicago, we argue that the prioritisation of disease surveillance, coupled with a scarcity model of public health provision, undermined the city's attempt to redress racial inequities in outcomes. We argue that the economisation of pandemic response exacerbates health disparities, even when racial equity frameworks are adopted., (© 2022 The Authors. Sociology of Health & Illness published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness.)

In postapartheid South Africa, a “crisis of masculinity” has become the most prominent explanation for high rates of violence against women and the gendered nature of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. This article offers a critique of such an analysis, and suggests that the sexualization of politics in the postapartheid era allows both state actors and impoverished community members to manage and negotiate the paradoxes of postcolonialism. Combining a discourse analysis and ethnographic study, the article analyzes the various ways in which the tropes of “modernity” and “traditionalism” are deployed (and resignified) in and through discursive struggles over masculinity and sexuality. Overall, the article argues that gender has become a primary terrain upon which colonial and postcolonial conflicts are played out. As such, rather than a “crisis of masculinity,” the sexualization of politics signifies and masks deep-seated concerns about the “success” of liberation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reporting on a study of activists living with HIV/AIDS who give testimonials of their experiences with the disease in various educational settings, this article employs the notion of ‘haunting’ as a means of analyzing the effect of social justice activism in the “aftermath” of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Because of a shift in both the discursive construction of AIDS and the material symptoms of the disease (due to widespread availability of anti-retroviral medication), the signified of AIDS is “out of joint” with the signification of the disease in the public sphere. AIDS, as a social phenomena and a personal, traumatic experience has been rendered spectral through processes of social othering, structural disenfranchisement, and cultural denialism. Most of the presenters included in this study utilize a strategy of “survivorhood” in order to promote prevention and combat stigma. In doing so, they inadvertently buttress dominant discourses that claim that the disease is now “manageable,” normalized, and under control. By contrast, one presenter utilizes a completely different performative approach. In order to confront and subvert the “aftermath” discourse and thereby presence the living trauma of AIDS, this presenter embodies the specter of AIDS. As such, his presentation forces the audience to reckon with processes of social exclusion and cultural otherness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]