ETHNOGRAPHY AND AIDS

Abstract

Ethnography has become an important research method in social scientific efforts to understand AIDS. The relationship between ethnography and AIDS has had numerous consequences on the conduct of ethnographic work: (a) the influx of large-scale government funding; (b) the bureaucratization of the ethnographic team; (c) the need for sophisticated, computerized data management systems; (d) the use of ethnography as a mechanism for empowerment; (e) the movement from viewing the research collaborator as “subject” to “client”; (f) the reduction in the stigma traditionally attached to research on homosexual phenomena; (g) increased cooperation between qualitative and quantitative researchers; and (h) the opportunity to conduct a wide range of innovative ethnographic studies. Although the relationship between ethnography and AIDS can inform current academic debates on the ethnographic enterprise, the ultimate value of our research lies in our ability to elegantly describe the everyday lives of people who are coping with or simply trying to make sense of AIDS.