Abstract #237  -  Mobilization against AIDS and contemporary transformations of activism: the case of Solidarit� Sida.
Authors:   Presenting Author:   Mrs Cécile Chartrain - Centre de Recherche sur l'Action Politique en Europe (CRAPE)
Additional Authors:
Aim: Solidarit Sida is a non governmental organization which stands aside in the French landscape of anti-AIDS activism. While most of the other important organisations have historically built their legitimacy and commitment onto the direct experience of the illness, Solidarit Sida distinguishes itself by its apolitical approach (centered on entertainment events), its public (mostly youngsters) and the somewhat distant relation that its volunteers have towards the disease and homosexuality. Through the case of Solidarit Sida, we aim to shed some light on the contemporary transformations of AIDS activism, in the framework of wider changes affecting the field of collective mobilizations.
Method / Issue: My research is based on combined methodology. I haveve been doing participant observation, I have realized in depth semi-structured interviews (n=60) and collected datas on volunteers through a questionnaire (n=413).
Results / Comments: The arrival of highly active antiretroviral therapies (HAART) has been a major breakthrough for people living with HIV, but has also accounted for a turning point in the history of mobilizations against AIDS: from 1995-1996, as AIDS has increasingly come to resemble to an ordinary chronic disease, mass media and authorities have started losing interest in the epidemic and organizations have been struggling to recruit new members or to keep the existing ones. In contrast to this trend, Solidarit Sida has experienced an almost uninterrupted growth. When we look closer to the forms of commitment within such an organization, we notice that a form of occasional implication prevails, in correspondence with the events organized by Solidarit� Sida. For what concerns the motivations driving the volunteers, we see that a general � will of commitment � is claimed, even if there seem to be a generational attachment to the cause. Nevertheless the implication of most volunteers would be inconceivable without the possibility offered by Solidarit Sida to experience an la carte and entertaining commitment, while getting socialized with other young people.
Discussion: The peculiar case of Solidarit Sida is in line with the overall changes occurring in the field of mobilizations against AIDS and, far beyond, of contemporary transformations of activism. We think in particular to the advent of more flexible and less ideological forms of commitment.
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