Thesis on gay activism and the Australian AIDS movement wins CASS PhD publishing prize

Jennifer Power completed her winning thesis Movement, Knowledge, Emotion: Gay activists and the Australian AIDS movement in the School of Sociology, Research School of Social Sciences in 2007.

“My thesis is about community activism around HIV/AIDS in Australia. Specifically, it looks at the role that the gay community played in the social, medical and political response to the virus throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. The thesis explores how HIV/AIDS came to be a defining issue in the history of gay and lesbian rights in Australia and documents an important chapter in Australian public health history. Drawing conclusions about the cultural impact of social movements, particularly health social movements, I argue that AIDS activism contributed to improving social attitudes toward gay men and lesbians in Australia, while also challenging some entrenched cultural patterns within the Australian medical system. AIDS activists were able to forge unprecedented opportunities for communities and ‘lay people’ to become involved in medical intervention and public health decision making” says Dr. Power.

Her thesis was chosen from a strong field of PhD theses completed across all areas of the College of Arts and Social Sciences between 2006 and 2010. Examiners praised Dr Power’s thesis as “…a rigourously researched and theoretically informed social history of this significant social movement [written] in a persuasive and eloquent manner..." and agreed that “[she] has made a significant contribution to scholarship and to the literature in this work ..."

Dr Jennifer Power’s thesis will be published by ANU E Press in 2011.