This article examines shifts in the ways that immigrants were framed and depicted within Swedish HIV/AIDS policy discourse from 1985 to 2005. In particular, it examines whether, when and how immigrants were linked to understandings of risk and safety in sexual relations. Whereas, at first, immigrants were rather marginal to this discourse, they later held a central position. Moreover, there was a shift in how ethnicity and 'race' were conceptualised by the Swedish authorities — a movement away from cultural pluralism towards neo-assimilationism. Throughout this time, cultural differences, often defined in terms of different attitudes to gender and sexuality, were focused on as defining the boundaries between 'immigrants' and 'Swedes'. But, whereas the pluralist approach favoured respect and tolerance for these differences, the neo-assimilationist approach that replaced it argued that immigrants ought to assimilate to the more enlightened sexual values of Swedishness, in order to better prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS infection.
Philadelphia is a US film released in 1993 about homophobia and HIV/AIDS-related discrimination. Yesterday is an acclaimed South African film released in 2004 about a young mother who discovers she has AIDS.
2.
R. Bayer and A. Fairchild, `Changing the paradigm for HIV testing: the end of exeptionalism', New England Journal of Medicine (Vol. 355, no. 7, 2006), pp. 647-9.
3.
See, for example, T. Wilton, Engendering AIDS: deconstructing sex, text and epidemic (London, Sage , 1997).
4.
S. Allen, ` "Race", ethnicity and nationality: some questions of identity', in H. Afshar and M. Maynard, The Dynamics of `Race' and Gender: some feminist interventions (London, Taylor & Francis, 1994), p. 89.
5.
The Contagious Disease Act has been revised a few times since but the measures mentioned here remain in force.
6.
National Commission on AIDS, Information on HIV/AIDS: goals and strategy for public policy measures ( Stockholm, Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, 1986), pp. 16-7.
7.
Prop. 1985/86: 13, Om ändring i smittskyddslagen (1968: 231) m. m., p. 10.
8.
Prop. 1985/86: 171, Om särskilda medel för bekämpningen av AIDS, p. 2. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations from Swedish sources are mine.
9.
National Commission on AIDS, op. cit., p. 16.
10.
Ibid.
11.
See, for example, Prop. 1985/86: 13, op. cit., p. 5.
12.
Vad alla bör veta om AIDS (Stockholm, Socialstyrelsen, 1985), p. 11.
13.
Gudrun Winfridsson, `Flyktingar bör erbjudas hivtest', Hivaktuellt (Nos. 5-6, 1990), p. 36. Nonetheless, the authorities did recommend that HIV tests should be offered at the general health check-up, which at that time formed part of the reception process for asylum seekers in Sweden. Studies have shown that this was done to very different degrees. Whereas some nursing staff offered everyone an HIV test, others provided them only for asylum seekers from certain countries. Among those who had been offered tests, however, nearly 95 per cent accepted. This, in turn, was partly due to the fact that many asylum seekers were not properly informed that the test was voluntary. See L. Abascal, Measures Proposed for the Prevention of HIV/AIDS and Other STD Diseases Among Refugees and Other Immigrants in Sweden (Stockholm, Socialstyrelsen, 1991).
14.
Ibid.; Socialstyrelsens föreskrifter och allmänna råd om tillämpningen av smittskyddslagen (Stockholm, Socialstyrelsen, 1989).
15.
National Commission on AIDS, op. cit.
16.
G. Winfridsson ,`Vi måste våga fråga', Hivaktuellt (Nos. 5-6, 1990), pp. 8-9.
17.
Hivaktuellt (Nos. 2-3, 1991), p. 36.
18.
Over the years, Hivaktuellt was published by whichever authority was then in charge of HIV/AIDS prevention in Sweden: first the National Board of Health and Welfare, then the National Commission on AIDS and then the National Institute of Public Health. Between 1986 and 1988, it was called Socialstyrelsen informerar om AIDS. It was discontinued in the spring of 2007.
19.
Hivaktuellt (Nos. 5-6, 1990), p. 3.
20.
Interviewed in S. Linnell, `Varje oförsiktigt samlag är en risk: "Inte bara i utlandet" ', Just nu (November 1990), p. 2.
21.
B. Christenson and P. Lundbergh, `Hiv-positiva afrikaner sprider smitta: Många nonchalerar smittskyddsreglerna', Läkartidningen (Vol. 90, no. 15, 1993), pp. 1478-81.
22.
Sven Britton , `Svenskt smittskydd och svarta hiv-smittade' , Läkartidningen (Vol. 90, nos. 26-7, 1993 ), pp. 2467-8.
23.
G. Zacharias , `Sluta tala om riskgrupper!', Hivaktuellt (No. 3, 1994), pp. 42-3.
24.
See, for example, J. Danielsson, `Inte rasism att säga sanningen', Hivaktuellt (No. 5, 1994), p. 42.
25.
C.-U. Schierup , P. Hansen and S. Castles, Migration, Citizenship and the European Welfare State: a European dilemma (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 218.
26.
Ibid.
27.
Ibid., p. 221.
28.
A. Ålund and C.-U. Schierup, Paradoxes of Multiculturalism: essays on Swedish society ( Aldershot, Avebury, 1991), p. 6.
29.
Wallerstein, quoted in ibid., p. 1.
30.
Ålund and Schierup, op. cit.
31.
E. Balibar and I. Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class: ambiguous identities (London, Verso, 1991). See also L. Fekete, `Anti-Muslim racism and the European security state', Race & Class (Vol. 46, No. 1, 2004), pp. 3-29.
32.
E. Pesikan , `Alla måste få information på sina egna villkor' , Kampen mot Aids (No. 2, 1989), pp. 2-4.
33.
Socialstyrelsens föreskrifter och allmänna råd om tillämpningen av smittskyddslagen, op. cit, p. 13.
34.
Ibid., p. 14.
35.
Swedish National Public Health Policy for STDs/HIV: basis and principles (Stockholm, Folkhälsoinstitutet , 1995), pp. 27-8.
36.
Ibid., p. 28.
37.
Ibid., p. 35.
38.
Ibid., p. 34.
39.
Ibid., p. 35.
40.
Ibid., p. 3.
41.
Ibid., p. 17.
42.
D. Kulick, `Four hundred thousand Swedish perverts', GLQ (Vol. 11, no 2, 2005), pp. 205-35; A. Bredström, ` "Love in another country": "race", gender and sexuality in sexual education material targeting migrants in Sweden', Sexualities (Vol. 8, no. 5, 2005), pp. 517-35.
43.
Swedish National Public Health Policy for STDs/HIV, op. cit., p. 22.
44.
M.-B. Mossberg, Det mest privata i det svenska folkhälsoarbetet: Sex, samlevnad och hiv/aids i ett mångkulturellt samhälle (Stockholm, Folkhälsoinstitutet, 1996).
45.
Ibid., p. 59.
46.
Ibid., p. 13.
47.
Ibid., p. 11.
48.
Quoted in ibid., p. 21.
49.
Samhällets insatser mot hiv/STI: att möta förändring ( Stockholm, Fritze, 2004), p. 224.
50.
Ibid., p. 226.
51.
A. Bredström, `Maskulinitet och kamp om nationella arenor: reflektioner kring bilden av "invandrarkillar" i svensk media', in P. de los Reyes, I. Molina and D. Mulinari (eds), Maktens (o)lika förklädnader: kön, klass och etnicitet i det postkoloniala Sverige ( Stockholm, Atlas, 2002), pp. 182-206.
52.
G. Renberg, `Sexualitetens olika villkor', Hivaktuellt (No. 2, 2002), p. 2, emphasis in original.
53.
Socialstyrelsens föreskrifter och allmänna råd om tillämpningen av smittskyddslagen, op. cit., pp. 10, 28-9.
54.
P. Hansen, `A superabundance of contradictions: the European Union's post-Amsterdam policies on migrant "integration", labour immigration, asylum, and illegal immigration' , ThemES (No. 28, Centre for Ethnic and Urban Studies, Linköping University, 2005), p. 18.
55.
D. Mulinari and A. Neergaard, Den nya svenska arbetarklassen: rasifierade arbetares kamp inom facket (Umeå, Boréa, 2004), p. 38.
56.
P. Hansen, EU migrationspolitik under 50 år: Ett integrerat perspektiv på en motsägelsefull utveckling (Lund, Studentlitteratur , 2008); C.-U. Schierup, P. Hansen and S. Castles, op. cit.
