Eighteenth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

In this paper, I locate the impact of the social construct of “HIV/AIDS” through my reading of three separate narratives and analyze their respective livid experiences in their given normative social structures (viz., family, neighbourhood, workspaces, etc.). Epistemologically, this analysis is framed from the vantage-points of queer methodology as queer writings inherently have a transformative potential, as they are well-capable of being deployed to shake the normative discourse of power in the structural-assemblages of the social and the legal. The overarching research question is: how does the power of heteronormative structures make lives vulnerable to HIV/AIDS in India? All the participants of this study are located in urban India (different clusters of Delhi, to be precise). This geographical preference comes because of my own livid-experiences of working with the MSM (men who have sex with men) communities in that region; also, because I speak the local language. These narratives unveil significant layers of marginalisation/exclusion based on gender (intertwined with other intersectional markers such as HIV status, age, marital status, educational background, class, et.al.), which in turn, help us academically theorise the challenges/barriers to accessing development in the urban spaces of India.