Rev. The Political Economy of Stigma Stories of the Self: HIV, Memoir, Medicine, and Crip Positionalities

Abstract

Drawing disability studies and feminist theory into a study of reading practices, autobiography, and HIV + subjectivities, The Political Economy of Stigma is a fresh, fierce, and deeply necessary text for life writing scholars, memoir fans, and health/illness practitioners and activists. Ally Day’s 2021 book is a critical intervention into theoretical, popular, and medical discourse surrounding HIV. Her research revolves around two distinct reading groups in different cities: one, composed of AIDS service workers (ASOs) who identify with activism, and the other, a group of women living with HIV. Reading HIV + memoirs alongside memoirs by other disabled women, these groups generate critical knowledge of the medical industrial complex and demonstrate the negotiation between reader and text—both individually and collectively. While focusing her 5. Lackey, Biofiction, 25. 6. Lackey, Biofiction, 49. 7. Montero, “Speculative Subjectivities,” 167, 164. 8. Lackey, Biofiction. 9. Lackey, Biofiction, 81. 10. Lackey, Biofiction, 87. 11. Lackey, Biofiction, 116.