Premium
Subverting Culture: Promoting HIV/AIDS Prevention Among Puerto Rican and Dominican Women
Author(s) -
Ortiz-Torres Blanca,
Serrano-García Irma,
Torres-Burgos Nélida
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1023/a:1005167917916
Subject(s) - conceptualization , health psychology , normative , sociology , public health , social psychology , social environment , context (archaeology) , gender studies , psychology , diversity (politics) , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , cultural diversity , medicine , social science , political science , anthropology , paleontology , nursing , family medicine , artificial intelligence , computer science , law , biology
This article discusses the challenges faced by researchers and interventionists when attempting to promote change in social norms and normative beliefs that promote HIV/AIDS risk‐related behaviors among Puerto Rican and Dominican women. The article focuses on the role of culture in HIV/AIDS prevention with women by analyzing the sociohistorical context of some cultural beliefs and by illustrating the tension between risk‐related and protective cultural beliefs in research conducted by the authors with women in both New York and Puerto Rico. The authors propose that promoting changes in sex‐related social norms and normative beliefs might be constructed as a subversive act and present the challenge this analysis poses for community psychology. They conclude that this conceptualization might be construed as subversive because rather than idealizing culture, it promotes changes that respect diversity within the culture and foster participation in the development of new cultural values, beliefs and norms.