The historical and contemporary impacts of HIV and AIDS in Japan are not popularly very well known, either in Japan or further afield. This is despite the fact that thousands of people in Japan have been diagnosed with HIV since the onset of the epidemic in the 1980s, as have people of Japanese ethnicity who are based overseas; that Japan hosted a major international AIDS conference in the early 1990s, playing a key role in the regional and global response to the epidemic; and that HIV and AIDS have featured in popular Japanese language discourse and cultural texts over the last four decades. In this lecture, Mark Pendleton (U. Sheffield) explores this history through several key moments and themes.

 

The history of HIV and AIDS in Japan (as elsewhere) is partly a story of language and classification, defined and regulated by the state through legislation and public policy. Yet public perception of HIV has more often been framed through media discourse, with the bodies and lives of people living with HIV at times coming under public scrutiny and media "scandals" driving stigma and public fear around AIDS itself and the groups perceived as more susceptible to the virus. Despite these negative framings, bodies and lives have also been sites of resistance and cultural production by those directly affected, with people living with HIV increasingly exercising control over how their own stories are told. And in recent years, after effective treatment has turned HIV into a manageable condition, activities focused on the memories and legacies of the epidemic have blossomed. In exploring these themes, Pendleton will consider how a closer look at this history opens up wider questions about how we understand Japanese society, both in the past and the present.

 

Dr Mark Pendleton is Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies at the University of Sheffield. He also held visiting positions over the last year at Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo and Sapienza University, Rome.

 

If you have any questions, please call The Japan Society office on 020 3075 1996 or email events@japansociety.org.uk.