Performed Ethnographies on HIV/AIDS Prevention
The Gendering Adolescent AIDS Prevention (GAAP) Project

In this project, we explored the value of using performed ethnography as an HIV prevention strategy with youth. By performed ethnography, we mean a way of disseminating research findings through performance, a medium more accessible to youth than scholarly publications. The short plays and monologues developed through the project are based on data collected through the Gendering Adolescent AIDS Prevention (GAAP) project housed at the Institute for Women’s Studies and Gender Studies (IWSGS), New College, University of Toronto. Through GAAP we are working to develop innovative and participatory approaches to HIV prevention education for youth. The performed ethnography project is our most recent initiative.

As part of the project, members of the New College Youth Advisory Board for the Gendering Adolescent AIDS Prevention (GAAP) project participated in a playwriting course conducted by Professor Tara Goldstein, a well know playwright and education scholar. The performances developed through the course include eight plays or monologues written and acted by youth. Each script takes up themes on HIV/AIDS identified by youth who participated in focus groups conducted by GAAP. The specific performance titles are:

1) VacciNation: A Performed Ethnography on the ‘Othering’ of AIDS
2) The Other Sex Talk
3) Biology, Blue Mascara, Birth Control, Boys: A Performed Ethnography
4) Slutty Virgins
5) Let’s Talk: Towards an Open Dialogue of Women Having Sex with Women
6) What Happens When I Spread My Legs?: Negotiating South Asian Female Sexuality
7) Connections
8) Sexecution

Following each set of public performances, a member of GAAP facilitates a discussion with the audience on issues raised in the scripts. This is one example of the ways performed ethnography can be used as a tool for HIV prevention education.