Transnational histories of collective action on HIV and AIDS in Europe in the 1980s and 1990s: Introduction

Authors

  • Nikolaos Papadogiannis University of Stirling
  • Somak Biswas University of Cambridge

Abstract

Abstract

The special issue adopts a transnational sociocultural history approach that frames a wide range of HIV and AIDS campaigning in Europe in the 1980s and 1990s as fundamentally linked to cross-border transfers of ideas and people. It contributes to histories of HIV and AIDS as well as of sexuality in three ways: First, it shows the multi-directionality of cross-border transfers among HIV campaigners, especially across Europe and the North Atlantic as well as between the Global South and Europe. Second, disrupting the often-unqualified narratives of biomedical progress that surround HIV and AIDS, this issue focuses on the deep socio-cultural hierarchies that marked such multidirectional trajectories. Showcasing an intersectional approach, it sheds light onto underexamined groups in the history of HIV activism, particularly Eastern European LGBT+, migrants, people of color, transgender individuals, and communities of faith. It illuminates how they mobilized at local, national, and transnational levels to secure new kinds of visibility, identity, and empowerment through sustained HIV and AIDS campaigns. Third, in considering forms of exclusion and transnational mobilization in such campaigns, the collection helps revise linear analyses of sexual norms and representations in the AIDS era as either witnessing a rollback or perpetuating ‘sexual liberalization.’

 

Keywords: HIV and AIDS, activism, Europe, transnational, sexuality, mobility

 

Author Biography

  • Nikolaos Papadogiannis, University of Stirling

    I am a Lecturer in European History at the University of Stirling in the UK. My research covers the history of sexuality, migration, and activism. I have published the monograph Militant around the Clock? Left-wing Youth Politics, Leisure and Sexuality in post-dictatorship Greece, 1974-1981 (London/New York: Berghahn Books, 2015). I have also published on the history of transgender individuals in Greece, and same-sex desire in that country, in journals, such as the European Review of History. I was the PI of the AHRC-funded project on Transnational AIDS Activism in Western Europe, 1980s-1990s.

Published

2025-06-26

Issue

Vol. 34 No. 2 (2025): May

Section

Studies