Popularising purity: gender, sexuality and nationalism in HIV/AIDS prevention for South Korean youths
Cheng, S.L.
Asia Pacific Viewpoint 46(1): 7-20
2005
ISSN/ISBN: 1360-7456 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8373.2005.00256.xDocument Number: 257055
This paper examines how human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) gains its social meanings at the intersection of discourses about gender, sexuality and nationalism in Korea. It examines how a major Korean non-governmental organization (NGO) reinforces media and government construction of HIV/AIDS as a national threat, and mobilizes 'purity' as an indigenous value to resist the global onslaught. This Purity Campaign successfully draws on pre-existing narratives about Korean society and national development, constituting itself as a site for both the negotiation of meanings around HIV/AIDS as well as the impact of globalization on Korea. The meaning of purity in the campaign is expanded to connote a state of moral being beyond mere chastity to reinforce the nation's defence against foreign corruption. Changing gender relations and sexual expressions become targets of purification, with women shouldering a disproportionate burden of blame and responsibility. The Campaign relies heavily on universalizing family rhetorics and national essence to popularize purity as the Korean way to build an AIDS-free society. Although purity becomes a symbol of moral order and national health, AIDS serves as a metaphor of foreign contamination and domestic anxieties. The discussion interweaves texts, interviews and ethnography, and draws on anthropological and cultural studies.