ABSTRACT
Abstract Interviews with four groups in India-male truck drivers, gay men, female brothel keepers and commercial sex workers, and male and female youthrevealed that, on the surface, they seem to be knowledgeable about AIDS and how it is transmitted. However, examination of how they interpret the idea of safer behaviour from the perspective of their personal situations showed problems in the ways they view the following:
• condom use as protection from HIV; • groups which they perceive as being at risk; • who they believe is responsible for transmission of the disease; and,
Having obtained an MA in Social Psychology, S.Veenapani taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses for three years before enrolling for a Ph.D. program at the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai. Her thesis, entitled ’Assessing Construction of Risk from HIV/AIDS’, was a two-phased study. The first phase dealt with how groups at potential risk, namely the truck drivers, the gay men, the CSWs, and the youth, perceive risk, their actual susceptibility, the factors that affect their risk construction and their strategies for managing risk. The second phase dealt with how the news media in Mumbai has portrayed the AIDS risk. She is currently engaged in a research project with Dr. Sanjay Srivastav of Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia, entitled ’Masculinities, Sexualities and Culture in South Asia’ which involves carrying out a cultural analysis by looking at various sites where sexual knowledge is produced, namely the sexologists, the self-appointed sexologists (quacks), sexologists adhering to alternative medical systems, sex counsellors, advice columns in magazines and newspapers, pornographic literature and other printed and audio-visual material. Readers can contact S. Veenapani at the following email address:veena_shiva@yahoo.com
• their appraisal of personal risk.
