Mobility, Sexuality and AIDS

Over the past two decades, population mobility has intensified and become more diverse, raising important questions concerning the health and well-being of people who are mobile as well as communities of origin and destination.

Ongoing concerns have been voiced about possible links between mobility and HIV, with calls being made to contain or control migrant populations, and debate linking HIV with issues of global security and surveillance being fuelled. This volume challenges common assumptions about mobility, HIV and AIDS. A series of interlinked chapters prepared by international experts explores the experiences of people who are mobile as they relate to sexuality and to HIV susceptibility and impact. The various chapters discuss the factors that contribute to the vulnerability of different mobile groups but also examine the ways in which agency, resilience and adaptation shape lived experience and help people protect themselves throughout the mobility process. Looking at diverse forms of migration and mobility – covering flight from conflict, poverty and exploitation, through labour migration to ‘sex tourism’ – the book reports on research findings from around the world, including the USA, the UK, sub-Saharan Africa, Australia, Central America and China.

Mobility, Sexuality and AIDS recognises the complex relationships between individual circumstances, population mobility and community and state response. It is invaluable reading for policy makers, students and practitioners working in the fields of migration, development studies, anthropology, sociology, geography and public health.

Felicity Thomas is a Research Fellow at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London. Active in the field of international development for over ten years, she has been involved in a number of research and action-based projects with refugees and asylum seekers living in sub-Saharan Africa and in the UK. Her research interests focus on the socio-economic and emotional impacts of HIV and AIDS, migrant health and well-being, and HIV treatment seeking and management.

Mary Haour-Knipe has worked in the field of migration and HIV since 1989, leading a European Union working group assessing HIV prevention activities for migrants and travellers in Europe, evaluating HIV prevention programmes amongst migrant communities, and working as senior advisor on migration and HIV/AIDS, then on migration and health, at the International Organization for Migration. She has also served as an advisor on HIV-related migration issues for the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS.

Peter Aggleton is Professor in Education, Health and Social Care, and Head of the School of Education and Social Work, at the University of Sussex, UK. He is a Visiting Professor in the National Centre in HIV Social Research at the University of New South Wales, Australia, and in the Section for International Community Health at the University of Oslo, Norway. The editor of the journal Culture, Health and Sexuality, he has worked internationally on issues of sexuality, sexual health and rights.