AIDScare · Comparative and entangled histories of AIDS care in Austria and Slovenia, 1980s–2000s

Despite progress in reducing HIV infections, many countries, including in the EU, remain off track to meet the 2030 goal of ending AIDS as a public health threat, not only due to funding gaps but also insufficient attention to how social, political and cultural contexts shape healthcare, stigma and public discourse. While AIDS histories of the West and Global South are well developed, Central and Southeast Europe remain underexplored. AIDScare addresses this gap by analysing the governance, practices and experiences of AIDS care in Austria and Slovenia between the 1980s and 2000s, two neighbouring countries at the crossroads of capitalist and (post)socialist Europe. Grounded in archival research, oral history interviews, and NGO collections it investigates: 1) how AIDS care was legislated and institutionalised; 2) how caregiving unfolded across hospitals, homes and community settings; and 3) how people living with HIV and AIDS and their caregivers experienced and contested care across shifting political and social landscapes. By integrating political, labour and social history with biopolitics, feminist and queer theory, and medical humanities, AIDScare examines care as a historically situated, politically regulated and socially contested space where state power, biomedical authority and grassroots solidarity intersect. The project builds on my prior work in political and transnational history, consolidating AIDS history as my core research. Training at the University of Graz in medical humanities, biopolitics, labour and gender history will strengthen my interdisciplinary skills, while a secondment at NGO QWIEN will add expertise in queer studies and curatorial practice, leading to a public exhibition in Austria and Slovenia. By offering the first comparative and entangled history of AIDS care in the region, AIDScare advances global AIDS studies and shows how HIV and AIDS redefined caregiving, challenged norms and reshaped lives in late- and post-Cold War Europe.