In “A Positive Positive? Intersectional Analysis of Identification and Counter-identification in three Contemporary HIV Narratives,” Desireé Ljungcrantz focuses on the documentary The Longest Journey Is the Journey Within (2015), about Steve Sjöquist, an HIV-positive activist, and the autobiographies Ophelias resa (“Ophelia’s Journey,” Larsson and Haanyama Ørum, 2007) and Mitt positiva liv (“My Positive Life,” Lundstedt and Blankens, 2012). Using the analytical concepts of identifications and counter-identifications, the chapter explores how normativities and deviations are negotiated through portraits of distance and closeness, identificatory narratives, and counter-identifications – relating to a wellness discourse of happiness and positivity normalizing HIV. The analysis of the representations of HIV and people with HIV in three contemporary HIV narratives shows how normative lines are being drawn with the potential to both widen the cultural imaginaries of HIV and reproduce and draw more narrow ideas of who are living with HIV.

Avhandlingen är en tvärvetenskaplig kulturstudie som utforskar föreställningar om och erfarenheter av hiv som kronisk sjukdom i Sverige under 2005–2014. Analysen av ett antal hiv-berättelser sker tillsammans med en teoretisk sammanflätning i form av den queera sårbarhetens och sjukdomens fenomenologi, samt genom de feministiska figurationerna hiv-tröskeln, skrubbsår, plåster och gruskorn. Materialet utgörs av djupintervjuer, autofiktiva texter och populärkulturella representationer. I djupintervjuer med personer som har hiv och i autofiktiva texter undersöks när och hur hiv görs och blir påtagligt i vardagslivet. Genom läsningar av de populärkulturella berättelserna Hur kunde hon?, Ophelias resa, Mitt positiva liv och Positiv undersöker avhandlingen hur protagonisterna och hiv gestaltas, vad som bygger dramaturgin samt hur normaliserande skildringar riskerar att (åter)skapa normativa gränser. Förhandlingar med normlinjer berör återkommande respektabilitet och begäret att framstå som en lyckad och lycklig individ, men även att ha ett levbart liv. Hiv-berättelser innehåller återkommande känslor som rädsla, skam och mononormativ melankoli. De utgör skrubbsår skapade i mötet med andra personer, samhällsinstitutioner och de föreställningar om hiv som finns i samhället. Likt gruskorn skrubbar föreställningarna oss. Det medför olika former av undvikande och ensamhetsorienteringar. Plåster, det vill säga individuella strategier av att exponera hiv och att distansera sig från den yttre blicken på självet görs tillsammans med och skapar känslor såsom lättnad, stolthet och ilska. Skrubbsår erbjuder en diskussion kring vardagligt hiv-görande, hur vi blir med hiv tillsammans med andra personer, normer, institutioner och samhällets skam- och kontrollmekanismer, samt hur känslor samskapar hiv. Genom ett poetiskt och skönlitterärt skrivande utgör scener och fiktiva karaktärer, baserade på intervjuer, och den autofiktiva alter-egoberättaren Desideria ett icke-distanserat och kännbart gestaltande av det relationella hiv-blivandet.

This thesis is a transdisciplinary cultural study on the imaginaries and experiences of HIV as a chronic illness in Sweden between 2005 and 2014. HIV narratives are analyzed through a theoretical merging of a queer, vulnerable illness phenomenology and the construction of the feminist figurations: the HIV threshold, abrasion, bandages and sharp small stones. The material is in-depth interviews, auto-fiction, and popular culture representations. In in-depth interviews with people living with HIV and in auto-fictive texts, the thesis explores when and how HIV is becoming palpable in everyday life. An analysis of the ways in which HIV and protagonist with HIV are portrayed in popular culture is undertaken through the reading of HIV narratives: How could she?, Ophelia's journey, My Positive Life and Positive. It is analyzed how the dramaturgic curve and hero narratives are built and how normalization narratives of HIV in these stories risk the (re) construction of normative lines. Normative lines touch repeatedly upon respectability, the desire to be conceived as happy and successful, but also to live a liveable life. The HIV narratives unfolds trough emotions of fear, shame and mononormative melancholia that are like abrasions made from the relational becoming with HIV - generated in the encounter with other people, institutions and cultural imaginaries. These imaginaries, as sharp small stones, rub against ourselves and our bodies. Bandages, as individual strategies, of exposure and distance to the external gaze, are made of and co-constructed with emotions such as relief, pride and anger. Abrasiom offers and discusses performativities of HIV in the everyday life; how we are becoming HIV-positive together with not only other people and institutions, but also in interaction with societal dimensions of shame and control; and how emotions are co-constructing the phenomena of HIV. This thesis also builds on a poetic writing inspired by literary narratology: in particular, the poetic writing style is used in scenes with fictive characters, shaped against the background of interpretations of interviews, as well as in the auto fictive alter-ego narrator Desideria. This thesis closely portrays the relational becoming with HIV.

Assembling the different stories on hiv and aids we will together discuss how activism can transform health-disease narrative that would relocate the politics of virus.

Through a reading of contemporary Swedish autobiographies on the theme "experiences of a life with hiv"; I will try to follow the emotions and the bodies represented in these text. How are meaning of hiv constructed when it comes to emo-bodiment?

This article explores the phenomenon HIV through queer readings. It explores the making of meaning, the nuances, dimensions and experiences in narratives on having HIV in contemporary Sweden. It centres around questions about the distinctiveness of HIV narratives and asks which narratives that are (made) possible, and which ones are (made) impossible? What types of relations are there between narratives and norms? What narratives of resistance are made visible? The found meaning making exposes a queer potential beyond health- and heteronormatives. Based on two different types of materials, 1) interviews of people with HIV and 2) autobiographies on living with HIV, the article traces negated experiences of living with HIV and finds both positive and negative ones. This is made visible by utilizing two types of queer methodologies and close readings of the texts: one phenomenological and one intersectional. Using a queer-phenomenological close reading of the material, the article traces negated experiences and disorientation through emotions of shame and melancholia. Using a queer-intersectional close reading of the material reveals experiences and emotions with more positive connotations, such as pride. The article finds queer potential in the gaps between the negative and positive emotions. In these gaps, and by using the concepts of queer time, heteronormativity and healthnormativity, the article traces and finds queer potential, expressed as a critique of the nuclear family. The queer potential of the narratives points to the ways companionships and intimacies other than the heteronormative can be built.

The article concludes that living with HIV in Sweden today is a complex position consisting of negotiations with negative imaginaries on HIV, heteronormative and healthnormative

Abstract: Att skriva hiv – känslo-förkroppsligande hiv-blivande

Hiv kan vara ett slags trauma som skapar affekt, känslor och kroppsliga reaktioner, särskilt med tanke på olika fördomar som kretsar kring sjukdomen. Negativa föreställningar landar på vissa kroppar mer än andra. Genom att läsa två samtida svenska (själv)biografier som handlar om att leva med hiv; Ophelias resa (2006) och Mitt positiva liv (2013); tillsammans med Sara Ahmeds begrepp negerad fenomenologi utforskar jag hur känslor och kroppslighet skildras. Vidare fokuserar jag hur läsaren och texten samskapas i sitt blivande. Denna presentation är en läsning där flera jag möts. Det här är en känslo-förkroppsligande läsakt.