Fear of Longevity: Everyday Struggles in the Pharmaceutical Age of AIDS, Taiwan
type: CreativeWork
description: Through an ethnographic study of civil society organisations (CSOs) in Taiwan, this research endeavours to explore how Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and biomedical approaches to controlling the epidemic have framed everyday life amongst ganranzhe (HIV infected individuals) and feiganranzhe (HIV uninfected individuals) from tongzhi (Comrades, LGBT populations) communities whose members are labelled as populations at risk. The health regime of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)/AIDS in Taiwan, I argue, redistributes state power to local social bodies where the decentralised governance of sexual minorities and social deviants is exercised through compassionate voluntary labour. Moreover, this health regime has escalated and engendered everyday struggles which the affected endure and will continue to confront. In the face of ongoing social and physical suffering amongst vulnerable individuals, living longer is not necessarily the ideal which everyone prioritises in their everyday lives and connections with others. In the early days of AIDS, prior to the availability of triple cocktail therapy in 1997, the diagnosis of disease was an inevitable death sentence. Longevity was desired, but unattainable, by ganranzhe. In contemporary Taiwan, when ganranzhe can access pharmaceuticals which enable a prolonged life with prevention and treatment of HIV-related symptoms, an unexpected fear of longevity has emerged. Living longer, I argue and conclude from stories told by research participants in this study, is not necessarily desirable when the everyday struggles facing ganranzhe are not mitigated, and will continue through that longevity. There is an established scholarly discourse in anthropology and sociology critiquing the impact of global agencies on local responses to HIV/AIDS through their directed provision of funding support. The absence of foreign subsidies to the CSOs in Taiwan society provides a contrasting example of the development and direction of H…
abstract: Through an ethnographic study of civil society organisations (CSOs) in Taiwan, this research endeavours to explore how Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and biomedical approaches to controlling the epidemic have framed everyday life amongst ganranzhe (HIV infected individuals) and feiganranzhe (HIV uninfected individuals) from tongzhi (Comrades, LGBT populations) communities whose members are labelled as populations at risk. The health regime of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)/AIDS in Taiwan, I argue, redistributes state power to local social bodies where the decentralised governance of sexual minorities and social deviants is exercised through compassionate voluntary labour. Moreover, this health regime has escalated and engendered everyday struggles which the affected endure and will continue to confront. In the face of ongoing social and physical suffering amongst vulnerable individuals, living longer is not necessarily the ideal which everyone prioritises in their everyday lives and connections with others. In the early days of AIDS, prior to the availability of triple cocktail therapy in 1997, the diagnosis of disease was an inevitable death sentence. Longevity was desired, but unattainable, by ganranzhe. In contemporary Taiwan, when ganranzhe can access pharmaceuticals which enable a prolonged life with prevention and treatment of HIV-related symptoms, an unexpected fear of longevity has emerged. Living longer, I argue and conclude from stories told by research participants in this study, is not necessarily desirable when the everyday struggles facing ganranzhe are not mitigated, and will continue through that longevity. There is an established scholarly discourse in anthropology and sociology critiquing the impact of global agencies on local responses to HIV/AIDS through their directed provision of funding support. The absence of foreign subsidies to the CSOs in Taiwan society provides a contrasting example of the development and direction of H…
author: Chen, Yi-Tsun
language: en_AU
date published: 2020
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:07:35Z
provider: Australian Catholic University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Australian Catholic University

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/199846