Includes bibliographical references (pages 217-240) and index.
Contents:
Machine generated contents note: 1. Anti-AIDS activism in the 1980s and 1990s; 2. Beginning, building, and being ACT UP/LA; 3. Battling for women's issues and women's visibility in ACT UP/LA; 4. Intersectional crises in ACT UP/LA; 5. Demobilization: ACT UP/LA in the years 1992-7; 6. From streets to suits: the inside(r)s and outside(r)s of ACT UP/LA; 7. Looking back on the life and death of ACT UP/LA.
Summary:
"The Life and Death of ACT UP/LA explores the history of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, Los Angeles, part of the militant anti-AIDS movement of the 1980s and 1990s. ACT UP/LA battled government, medical, and institutional neglect of the AIDS epidemic, engaging in multi-targeted protest in Los Angeles and nationally. The book shows how appealing the direct action anti-AIDS activism was for people across the United States; as well as arguing the need to understand how the politics of place affect organizing, and how the particular features of the Los Angeles cityscape shaped possibilities for activists. A feminist lens is used, seeing social inequalities as mutually reinforcing and interdependent, to examine the interaction of activists and the outcomes of their actions. Their struggle against AIDS and homophobia, and to have a voice in their healthcare, presaged the progressive, multi-issue, anti-corporate, confrontational organizing of the late twentieth century, and deserves to be part of that history"-- Provided by publisher. "Epigraphs are drawn from the work of one of the most respected and influential sociologists of the twentieth century - that would be the late Ralph Turner - and a snarky UCLA graduate student- that would be me. Juxtaposed, they show how much activism around questions of health and disease has shifted over the last several decades. Writing in 1972, Dr. Turner captured the general view that illnesses like cancer were equal opportunity diseases. Very few of those suffering from cancer would have attributed the cause of that cancer to negligence by others, and therefore the means of generating the moral outrage that would turn misfortune to injustice was lacking. But moral outrage around health issues was just around the corner. By the end of the 1970s, the feminist women's health movement was in full swing, challenging sexist health practices, doctors' paternalistic authority over women, inequalities in health care delivery, and prevailing standards in resource allocation for research. Views on what caused disease and who was responsible for health changed, and the feminist health movement spilled over (Meyer and Whittier 1994), spawning other movements that worked to pave the way for a large-scale democratization of the culture of medical treatment and research"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.