There's more to health than HIV : social capital & health in the gay community

The legal climate for gay men in the UK has undergone enormous change since thedecriminalisation of 'homosexuality1 in 1967 with changes in the social climate following.Bringing together concepts of 'social capital 1 and 'reflexive individualisation', the researchexplores how the changes have helped shape the gay experience, especially in terms ofhealth and well-being. In recent history, gay men's health has been located within the HIVdiscourse, assuming a homogeneous gay identity and community. Yet gay men have variousidentities and a full spectrum of health needs, well beyond HIV and AIDS alone. Theresearch pursues ethnography as method to provide 'thick description' of gay men's lives incontext. After immersion in the context, access was gained to 24 gay men whose agesranged from 17 to 73 years old. There were also five non-gay participants and sixrepresentatives of gay themed organisations. Participant observation, field notes andInternet data complemented semi-structured and unstructured interviews. The data wereanalysed using the thematic and grounded theory approach. This identified generationalvariations within the experience of gay men characterised by how the law defined them.The findings indicated that the social capital framework does not account for theexperiences this minority group or the variations within it. Gay men displayed differentstyles of embeddedness, and ways of developing trust in others. Self-censorship hinderedthe development of these important skills. It also seemed plausible that these sameconditions promoted reflexivity through the need to manage multiple identities in varioussocial settings. With respect to health, it was HIV that structured much of their accounts,although they did vary across generations. Generation also structured the experience andpractice in other areas of health. The project demonstrates the importance of both sexualorientation and masculinity in the construction of all men's health.

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral (Level 8)

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Goldring, JE

Language dc:language

en

Identifier

oai:salford-repository.worktribe.com:1337153

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:salford-repository.worktribe.com:1337153