ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with a number of the concerns which emerged from the papers and ensuing discussions at the Amsterdam Conference on ‘Culture, Sexual Behavior, and AIDS’ upon which this volume is based. Many of those present expressed a commitment not only to study, but to become involved in ameliorating the ravages of a disease which they had experienced both as researchers and as the friends and lovers of people who were suffering from, and had died from the disease. The anguish and anger of the opening addresses set the tone for the conference, and in his concluding remarks, Richard Parker positioned the anthropological response to AIDS in the long, chequered, and controversial history of anthropology as an applied discipline. There was no doubt as to his chosen course of action: intervention and a total commitment of skill and professional insight to the struggle against HIV and AIDS. That he found the current state of theory and method in the study of human sexuality in relation to the task of AIDS intervention wanting, epitomizes the challenge which he argued faces the discipline of anthropology in the decade to come.
