Workable Sisterhood : : The Political Journey of Stigmatized Women with HIV/AIDS / / Michele Tracy Berger.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Berger, Michele Tracy,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2010]; ©2004
• Year of Publication: 2010
• Edition: Course Book
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (256 p.) :; 1 table.

Workable Sisterhood is an empirical look at sixteen HIV-positive women who have a history of drug use, conflict with the law, or a history of working in the sex trade. What makes their experience with the HIV/AIDS virus and their political participation different from their counterparts of people with HIV? Michele Tracy Berger argues that it is the influence of a phenomenon she labels "intersectional stigma," a complex process by which women of color, already experiencing race, class, and gender oppression, are also labeled, judged, and given inferior treatment because of their status as drug users, sex workers, and HIV-positive women. The work explores the barriers of stigma in relation to political participation, and demonstrates how stigma can be effectively challenged and redirected. The majority of the women in Berger's book are women of color, in particular African Americans and Latinas. The study elaborates the process by which these women have become conscious of their social position as HIV-positive and politically active as activists, advocates, or helpers. She builds a picture of community-based political participation that challenges popular, medical, and scholarly representations of "crack addicted prostitutes" and HIV-positive women as social problems or victims, rather than as agents of social change. Berger argues that the women's development of a political identity is directly related to a process called "life reconstruction." This process includes substance- abuse treatment, the recognition of gender as a salient factor in their lives, and the use of nontraditional political resources.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Chapter 1. The Politics of Intersectional Stigma for Women with HIV/AIDS -- Chapter 2. Women's Narrative Bio-Sketches -- Chapter 3. Capturing the Research Journey/ Listening to Women's Lives -- Chapter 4. Narratives of Injustice: Discovery of the HIV/AIDS Virus -- Chapter 5. Life Reconstruction and the Development of Nontraditional Political Resources -- Chapter 6. Life Reconstruction and Gender -- Chapter 7. Making Workable Sisterhood Possible: The Multiple Expressions of Political Participation -- Chapter 8. Looking to the Future: Struggle and Commitment for Stigmatized Women with HIV/AIDS -- Appendix -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index