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Project Stigma

Project Stigma is a collaborative interdisciplinary project with research partners in London, Brighton, New York, Delhi, Nairobi, and Havana to develop an innovative research programme focused on providing new understandings of stigma as an embodied, affective and bio-technologically mediated phenomenon that differentiates between urban locations (UNAIDS Fast-Track Cities).

The UN FTC partnership is a global initiative inviting municipalities in the Global South and North to commit to arresting HIV transmission by improving access to health services and reducing stigma. This focus on the eradication of stigma, to facilitate access to HIV biomedicines for treatment and/as prevention, neglects how people affected by HIV live their bodies in respect of localised socio-economic contexts, sexual cultures, HIV biotechnologies, and psychic life - crucial for understanding how stigma operates.

During a series of workshops held in Brighton, Delhi, Havana, Nairobi, and New York structured following the arts-based methodology Embodied Mapping and working with local artists, the project will develop innovative theoretical, epistemological and methodological approaches for assembling situated knowledge about HIV stigma; investigate how visual methods open up new trajectories for HIV and stigma research and explore the stigmatised body as a psychosocial and material multiplicity.

  • Full project title: Reframing HIV Stigma: towards a 5 cities research programme 
  • Funding: £30,000
  • Funder: Wellcome Trust
  • Length of award: 24 months 

People involved

  • Dr Annette-Carina van der Zaag, Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK
  • Dr Paul Boyce, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK
  • Dr Rory Crath, Smith College, Massachusetts, US
  • Mr Anupam Hazra, SAATHII, New Delhi, India
  • Ms Amrita Sarkar, TPATH, New Delhi, India
  • Mr Denis Nzioka, HiVOS, Nairobi, Kenya
  • Dr Olga Lidia Saavedra Montes de Oca, Sussex University, Brighton, UK

Research aims

  • Our network objectives are to:
    • Consolidate a distinctive network capable of challenging existing formulations of HIV and stigma through new epistemological and methodological approaches for assembling situated knowledge about HIV at intimate, municipal, and global scales
    • Investigate how visual methods can open up new research trajectories for research as directly relevant to the FTC initiative and (HIV) stigma research more broadly defined
    • Explore how the body in relation to HIV and stigma is understood differently between sectors and urban locations and how this multiplicity is negotiated in practice
    • Explore the stigmatised body as a psychosocial and material multiplicity through theoretical engagement.

Methodology

  • The workshop methodology draws its design from Embodied Mapping, a visual research methodology closely aligned with our analytical engagements, initially developed and piloted in New York.
  • Together with a local artist specialising in collage work, network partners co-create richly textured visual maps of embodied, locally contextualised experiences of HIV stigma.
  • During the workshops, participants are divided into groups. With the help of an artist, each group will visually map differential ways they understand the body in relation to localised and intimate histories and contemporary experiences of HIV stigma, prevention, and treatment.

Outputs

  • The small grant is utilised to consolidate our network, pilot our approach and apply for further funding to continue our work with Project Stigma.