Diminished worlds? The geography of everyday life with HIV/AIDS

This paper examines the impact of HIV/AIDS upon the geography of everyday life using insights gained from an ethnographic study of nine men with symptomatic HIV and AIDS in Los Angeles. Variations among respondents and their immediate environments produce different experiences following diagnosis. Despite these variations, there exist some striking similarities in the impact of the illness. These similarities are conceptualized using a stage model to illustrate the changing effect of the illness upon the geographical dimensions of respondents' lives. Respondents' lives were fundamentally altered by HIV/AIDS, but not all changes were detrimental. The complex nature of the illness engenders a series of both positive and negative shifts in well-being, which, in turn, produces expansion as well as decline of people's daily worlds.