HIV positive men as fathers: Accounts of displacement, ir/responsibility and paternal emergence

It is now apparent that socio-cultural constructions of masculinity variously impact men’s experiences of their HIV positive status, yet how being a father can feature in this mix remains under-researched. This study employed in-depth semi-structured interviews and Foucauldian-informed discourse analysis to explore the accounts of six self-identifying heterosexual fathers (four black African migrants, two white European) who had been living with HIV from five to 24 years. While the HIV-related literature calls for the need to subvert ‘traditional’ expressions of masculinity as a means of promoting HIV prevention and HIV health, we argue that the lived experience for HIV positive men as fathers is more socially, discursively and thus more psychologically nuanced. We illustrate this by highlighting ways in which HIV positive men as fathers are not simply making sense of themselves as a HIV positive man for whom the modern (new) man and father positions are useful strategies for adapting to HIV and combating associated stigma. Discourses of modern and patriarchal fatherhoods, a gender-specific discourse of irresponsibility, and the neoliberal conflation of heath and self-responsibility are also at work in the sense making frames that HIV positive men, who are also fathers, can variously deploy. Our analysis shows how this discursive mix can underpin possibilities of often conflicted meaning and identity when living as a man and father with HIV in the UK, and specifically how discourses of fatherhood and HIV ‘positive’ health can complicate these men’s expressions and inhabitations of masculinity.

Distress Tolerance among Students Referred for Treatment Following Violation of Campus Cannabis Use Policy: Relations to Use, Problems, and Motivation

Students referred to treatment after violating campus drug policies represent a high-risk group. Identification of factors related to these students’ cannabis use could inform prevention and treatment efforts. Distress tolerance (DT) is negatively related to substance-related behaviors and may be related to high-risk cannabis use vulnerability factors that can impact treatment outcome. Thus, the current study tested whether DT was related to cannabis use frequency, cannabis-related problems, and motivation to change cannabis use among 88 students referred for treatment after violating campus cannabis policies. DT was robustly, negatively related to cannabis use and related problems. DT was also significantly, negatively correlated with coping, conformity, and expansion motives. DT was directly and indirectly related to cannabis problems via coping (not conformity or expansion) motives. Motives did not mediate the relation of DT to cannabis use frequency. DT may be an important target in treatment with students who violate campus cannabis policies.

Security trumps drug control: How securitization explains drug policy paradoxes in Thailand and Vietnam

This paper investigates the paradoxes inherent in Thai and Vietnamese drug policies. The two countries have much in common. Both are ultra-prohibitionist states which employ repressive policies to contain drug markets. Their policies have, however, diverged in two key areas: opium suppression and harm reduction. Thailand implemented an effective intervention to suppress opium farming centred upon alternative development, whereas Vietnam suppressed opium production through coercive negotiation with nominal alternative development. Vietnam has embraced elements of harm reduction, whereas Thailand has been slow to implement harm reduction policies. This paper hypothesises that these two differences are largely a product of their perceived relationship to security. The two cases demonstrate how once an issue is securitized the ultra-prohibitionist rules of the game can be broken to allow for more humane and pragmatic policies.