Viral Memories: from HIV to COVID-19 and Beyond
Viral Memories explores how gay men used their experiences and memories of HIV (and the AIDS crisis) to navigate COVID-19, and how COVID-19 changed how we think of HIV.
Research in a nutshell
COVID-19 has altered how we feel about risk and wellbeing. In some ways, this has happened before: in the 1980s and 90s, HIV caused the AIDS pandemic, which transformed how we related to each other. Since then, HIV has transformed from a death sentence to a chronic, manageable, condition with several prevention methods. However, today, for many, HIV remains associated with gay men, who have turned to their experiences and memories of it to understand and live through COVID-19.
Through interviews with younger and older gay men, we will explore how they remember HIV during COVID-19, and how their memories and experiences of HIV help them navigate COVID-19 risk in the UK. We will also look at how COVID-19 has changed the ways in which gay men remember and think about HIV.
We will work with community organisations to develop better ways of communicating about risk and to write a new chapter in the history of gay communities.
COVID-19 has coincided with a renewed interest on HIV which, in the 80s and 90s, already transformed ways of being and relating. HIV remains disproportionately associated with gay men. Within these, there coexist today different experiences of HIV and AIDS. Particularly, some gay men (in their 40s and older) have lived experience of the AIDS crisis whereas for others (in their mid-20s and younger) AIDS is a distant cultural memory.
This project explores how different memories and experiences of HIV and AIDS come about in gay men's everyday encounters with COVID-19, how they influence their negotiations of risk and wellbeing, and how those memories themselves are framed by a new global epidemic. In doing so, this project provides empirical evidence on how memory and experience may be deployed to support health promotion during and beyond COVID-19.
The specific research questions are:
- What memories of HIV and AIDS does COVID-19 elicit for gay men?
- How do gay men, particularly those who lived through the AIDS crisis and those who did not, mobilize their memories, experiences of, and responses to HIV and AIDS to navigate risk and wellbeing during COVID-19?
- How does COVID-19 frame gay men's memories and experiences of HIV and AIDS in the UK?
- How can people's experiences of a past crisis be harnessed to support wellbeing in contexts of viral risk?
This project will produce qualitative empirical data through semi-structured interviews with two cohorts of gay men. The interviews will focus on participants' memories and experiences of HIV and AIDS and their role in negotiating wellbeing and risk during COVID-19. Emphasis will be placed on framing participants' responses in their socio-cultural positions. This project is the first analysis of the role of memory and experience of HIV and AIDS in gay men's navigation of COVID-19 and will describe a new chapter in the sexual and epidemiological history of this community by capturing current data about COVID-19.
Furthermore, this project advances our understanding of how risk intersects with identity and context by being the first to analyse how COVID-19 is navigated not just by gay men, but by comparing two distinct cohorts of gay men with different experiences of HIV and AIDS. It develops our understanding of how risk intersects with different cultural contexts and identity positions. Finally, this study will provide evidence for how experiences of HIV/AIDS among diverse gay men influence perceptions of viral risk and wellbeing during COVID-19 and will inform new approaches to supporting wellbeing.
What you can do!
We’re looking for participants!
If you’re a gay man living in the UK, we’d love to hear from you.
We are looking for gay men between 18 and 25 years old, and those over 45 years.
- You will register your interest in a short form (below) and, if selected, we’ll get in touch with you to arrange an interview over Zoom, Skype, Teams or the phone.
- We will be raffling two £80 Amazon vouchers among all those who register. If you’re selected for an interview, you’ll receive a £20 Amazon voucher.
COMPLETE THIS FORM TO REGISTER YOUR INTEREST and our team will be in touch with you shortly
Key people
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Jamie Garcia-Iglesias | Principal Investigator, Chancellor’s Fellow |
| Sophie Atherton | Research Fellow |
Updates on the project
Contact
For inquiries about this project, please email jgarcia6@ed.ac.uk and satherto@ed.ac.uk
Relevant publications
Jamie Garcia-Iglesias' publications on Edinburgh Research Explorer
Partners and Funders
This project is based at the Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society; Usher Institute, Edinburgh Medical School.
This project is funded by the ESRC New Investigator Scheme.
Timeline
01/05/2023 - 01/09/2025
Scientific themes (keywords)
HIV/AIDS, COVID-19, sexuality, memory, gay men, risk
Methodology keywords
Qualitative, interviews