October 28: Katarzyna Szarla at Socialist Medicine Seminar
Katarzyna Szarla (University of Warsaw) presents:
‘TO EUROPE — YES, BUT…’: HIV/AIDS AND THE POSTSOCIALIST POLITICS OF CARE IN POLAND, 1980S–1990S
October 28, 14:00-16:00 CET
Humboldt University of Berlin
Exceptionally held in room 114 in Anton-Wilhelm-Amo-Str. 40/41.
Sign up for the Zoom link by clicking here and filling out this form.
The People’s Republic of Poland recorded its first case of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) in 1985. As the socialist order disintegrated at an increasingly rapid pace, the number of reported cases steadily rose, peaking alarmingly in 1989. HIV/AIDS thus became an important site of embodied negotiations over the politics of care in the newly democratic country.
‘It is your fault that you are sick — your transgressions. Don’t put your burden on people who are already unhappy because of today’s reality.’ ‘(…) We don’t want to take on the burden of helping those who have other places to go, where they come from. You can’t force us to help others.’ These statements, recorded during protests against facilities and homes for HIV+ individuals, together with the broader public debate on support and care for people living with HIV/AIDS and the actual conditions of such care, reveal the complex motivations, emotions, and dynamics involved in the renegotiations of postsocialist concepts and practices of care, shaped by the shift of responsibility from the state to the individual, the privatisation of care, and a broader economic and social crisis that reinforced mechanisms of exclusion at the time.
This presentation explores how the HIV/AIDS crisis exposed social understandings of illness, care, and dependency during the period of transformation. What was to be the place of the sick and the dependent in postsocialist society? What changed — and what did not change — in everyday health care during the country’s transformation? Who was expected to be responsible for caring for the ill and bearing the costs of that care? And, most importantly, how did this affect the experiences of people living with HIV/AIDS?
KATARZYNA SZARLA is a PhD candidate in the Department of History, University of Warsaw. She holds a degree in medicine from the Medical University of Warsaw and has also studied history and bioethics at the University of Warsaw. Her doctoral dissertation explores how the HIV/AIDS reveals changes in the postsocialist social order and politics of care. Her research interests include critical medical humanities, social history of medicine, history of sexuality, and history of transformation in East Central Europe.
She is also an oral historian, engaged in several oral history projects. These include her own research on HIV/AIDS, a study on the early history of in vitro fertilisation in Poland (2022 — present), and the collective project ‘Oral Histories from the Rybnik Coal Basin’ (2024 — present), which investigates local memories of transformation in the postindustrial region of Upper Silesia.
October 28: Katarzyna Szarla at Socialist Medicine Seminar
Katarzyna Szarla (University of Warsaw) presents:
‘TO EUROPE — YES, BUT…’: HIV/AIDS AND THE POSTSOCIALIST POLITICS OF CARE IN POLAND, 1980S–1990S
October 28, 14:00-16:00 CET
Humboldt University of Berlin
Exceptionally held in room 114 in Anton-Wilhelm-Amo-Str. 40/41.
Sign up for the Zoom link by clicking here and filling out this form.
The People’s Republic of Poland recorded its first case of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) in 1985. As the socialist order disintegrated at an increasingly rapid pace, the number of reported cases steadily rose, peaking alarmingly in 1989. HIV/AIDS thus became an important site of embodied negotiations over the politics of care in the newly democratic country.
‘It is your fault that you are sick — your transgressions. Don’t put your burden on people who are already unhappy because of today’s reality.’ ‘(…) We don’t want to take on the burden of helping those who have other places to go, where they come from. You can’t force us to help others.’ These statements, recorded during protests against facilities and homes for HIV+ individuals, together with the broader public debate on support and care for people living with HIV/AIDS and the actual conditions of such care, reveal the complex motivations, emotions, and dynamics involved in the renegotiations of postsocialist concepts and practices of care, shaped by the shift of responsibility from the state to the individual, the privatisation of care, and a broader economic and social crisis that reinforced mechanisms of exclusion at the time.
This presentation explores how the HIV/AIDS crisis exposed social understandings of illness, care, and dependency during the period of transformation. What was to be the place of the sick and the dependent in postsocialist society? What changed — and what did not change — in everyday health care during the country’s transformation? Who was expected to be responsible for caring for the ill and bearing the costs of that care? And, most importantly, how did this affect the experiences of people living with HIV/AIDS?
KATARZYNA SZARLA is a PhD candidate in the Department of History, University of Warsaw. She holds a degree in medicine from the Medical University of Warsaw and has also studied history and bioethics at the University of Warsaw. Her doctoral dissertation explores how the HIV/AIDS reveals changes in the postsocialist social order and politics of care. Her research interests include critical medical humanities, social history of medicine, history of sexuality, and history of transformation in East Central Europe.
She is also an oral historian, engaged in several oral history projects. These include her own research on HIV/AIDS, a study on the early history of in vitro fertilisation in Poland (2022 — present), and the collective project ‘Oral Histories from the Rybnik Coal Basin’ (2024 — present), which investigates local memories of transformation in the postindustrial region of Upper Silesia.
