[Commlist] Call for Papers: A Cartography of HIV and AIDS: Archives, Memories, Representations and Narratives

Call for Papers: A Cartography of HIV and AIDS: Archives, Memories, 
Representations and Narratives / Special Issue of Estudios LGBTIQ+, 
Comunicación y Cultura

Studying and researching HIV and AIDS remains an urgent task that 
challenges us both ethically and affectively. Since its emergence as a 
pandemic and over the last forty years, HIV and AIDS have had a 
significant impact on the history of LGBTIQ+ communities globally, 
leading to the creation of cultural, artistic, political and media 
discourses that continue to this day. Beyond its biomedical dimension, 
it is a social and cultural phenomenon that has shaped activism, visual 
representations, narratives and modes of constructing collective memory. 
At the same time, it has exposed the operation of mechanisms of unequal 
vulnerability in terms of gender, class, race and sexuality, generating 
responses from wider communities regarding the impacts and lived 
experiences of life with HIV and AIDS.
This special issue invites researchers to contribute theoretical, 
methodological and/or empirical articles that analyse HIV and AIDS from 
the perspective of gender and sexuality studies, within an 
interdisciplinary framework, with particular emphasis on their 
relationship with communication, culture and the arts, in order to 
explore the implications, challenges and opportunities that arise in the 
diverse contexts in which they are situated.
We seek contributions that revisit the legacies of the AIDS crisis and 
make visible voices, practices and acts of remembrance, in order to 
attend to their specificities in their temporal contexts, local settings 
and/or transnational connections, as well as to their potential to 
(de)nounce the challenges of the present. We are particularly interested 
in recovering experiences that have been silenced or marginalised 
throughout history, including those of cis and trans* women, racialised 
people, communities in the Global South, incarcerated people and sex 
workers.
Furthermore, this special issue aims to open a space for reflection on 
how to decolonise historical and contemporary narratives of HIV and 
AIDS, and to consider affects and forms of collective care as 
exploratory entry points to archives and processes of memory 
construction, reconfiguring the ways in which the epidemic is narrated.
We invite contributions that articulate critical analyses oriented 
towards imagining new ways of building broader communities and 
strategies of visibility as political response and social justice. 
Reviews related to the theme of the special issue are also welcome.
*Note:* In line with the recommendations of the RAE and the WHO, in 
Spanish usage /VIH/ is written in capital letters as it is an active 
(non-lexicalised) acronym, whereas /sida/ is a lexicalised acronym and 
functions as a common noun.
Reviews and texts for the “Panorama” section that engage with the theme 
of the dossier will also be considered.
*Focus of the Issue*
This special issue addresses representations of HIV and AIDS in the 
fields of communication, culture and the arts from the standpoint of 
gender and sexuality studies and within an intersectional perspective, 
allowing for a critical analysis of how the epidemic has been narrated 
and figured in media, cultural and artistic discourses. We are 
interested in examining how these representations —ranging from cinema, 
literature, photography, dance, theatre and video art to television, the 
press and social media— shape collective memories and expose the affects 
and inequalities surrounding experiences of living with HIV and AIDS. 
Furthermore, the issue explores how these media and cultural dispositifs 
contribute to re-signifying experiences of HIV and AIDS and to 
articulating new forms of community and visibility, which is essential 
for understanding and acting upon the effects of the virus in 
contemporary society.
*Descriptors*
By way of example, and without being restrictive, submissions may 
address topics such as:

  * Representations of HIV and AIDS in the cultural and creative
    industries (film, literature, theatre, sociodigital platforms, etc.).
  * Media, stigma and awareness-raising campaigns.
  * LGBTIQ+ narratives and activism, counter-normative responses and
    politics of memory.
  * Intersectional analyses of HIV and AIDS (race, class, gender,
    migration).
  * Individual and/or collective artistic experiences and manifestations
    around HIV seropositivity.
  * Social and cultural history of HIV and AIDS.
  * Contemporary debates on biomedical technologies and/or uses of PrEP.
  * Memories of HIV and AIDS: testimonies, autobiographies and life 
stories.
  * Archives, museums and cultural heritage related to AIDS.
  * Religion, morality and discourses on HIV.
  * New generations and critical pedagogies on HIV and AIDS.

*International relevance:* contributions from different public and 
private institutions and from diverse international geographical 
contexts will be especially valued.
*Languages:* proposals are accepted in Spanish and English.
No payment of any kind will be required from authors to submit and publish.

*Editorial guidelines:* _https://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/ESLG/about 
<https://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/ESLG/about>_
*All research articles must adhere to academic standards following the 
IMRaD format: Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion + 
Conclusions. References must follow APA 7, and all articles will be 
published with their corresponding DOI (where applicable).*

*Coordination *
*Antonio A. Caballero Gálvez
*Professor in the Department of Communication and Sociology and member 
of the Diversity Unit at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos. His research 
focuses on the representation of gender and sexualities in contemporary 
audiovisual media and social networks. He is a member of the 
Consolidated Research Group on Sexualities and Gender from an 
Interdisciplinary Perspective and of the High-Performance Research Group 
on Media and Political Communication at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos.
*Raul Anthony Olmedo Neri*
Full-time Professor-Researcher at the Centre for Studies in 
Communication Sciences in the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences 
at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). His research 
areas include cultural studies, LGBTIQ+ studies, digital activism, ICTs 
and everyday life. He is a member of the Mexican Association of 
Communication Researchers (AMIC) and the Latin American Association of 
Communication Researchers (ALAIC).
*Natalia Cocciarini*
Professor at the Faculty of Humanities and Arts of the National 
University of Rosario. Her research focuses on archives and discourses 
of sexual countercultures and post-pornography from a socio-historical 
and cultural perspective. She is co-director of the Master’s Degree in 
Socio-cultural History and a member of the University Programme on 
Sexual Diversity at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies of the 
National University of Rosario.

*Key dates*
Deadline for submission of academic article proposals: *20 March 2026*
Deadline for submission of review proposals related to the thematic 
dossier: *11 May 2026*
Publication of the dossier: *Second issue, 2026*
*Open Access policy and fees*
The journal is an open access journal, which means that all of its 
contents are available free of charge for all individuals and their 
institutions. Users can read, download, copy, distribute, print, search 
and link the complete text of all articles, or use them for any other 
lawful purpose, without being required to ask for permission from their 
authors and editors beforehand. This definition of open access agrees 
with the Budapest Open Access Initiative,/BOAI/ The re-utilization of 
works can be done in the terms listed under the license _Creative 
Commons Reconocimiento 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) 
<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.es_ES>_.
The journal does not charge authors any fees for article processing 
(submission, review or editing) or publication.
*List of references*
Cocciarini, N. (2025). /Un archivo sidario. Agencias desde las 
contraculturas sexuales (Argentina 1985-1994)./ La Plata: EDULP.
Cvetkovich, A. (2018). /Un archivo de sentimientos. Trauma, sexualidad y 
culturas públicas lesbianas./ Barcelona: Bellaterra Edicions.
Dion, K. (2022). /Positive Images: Gay Men and HIV/AIDS in the Culture 
of “Post Crisis”./ London / New York: I.B. Tauris.
EQUIPO RE (Aimar Arriola, Nancy Garín, Linda Valdés) (2017). /Anarchivo 
sida./ Donostia-San Sebastián: Tabakalera.
García-Ramos, F. J. (2023). I tell you through the songs: Barebacking 
and PrEP in /Chenoa’s Fault/ (Abril Zamora, 2018). In F. A. Zurian & 
F.-J. García-Ramos (Eds.), /Cultural crossings in contemporary 
audiovisual media: Aesthetic, literary and musical mediations/ (pp. 
182–209). Fragua.
Hascher, K. et al. (2021). “‘Why aren’t you on PrEP? You’re a gay man’: 
reification of HIV ‘risk’ influences perception and behaviour of young 
sexual minority men and medical providers.” /Culture, Health & 
Sexuality,/ 25(1), pp. 63–77. doi: 10.1080/13691058.2021.2018501.
Mackenzie, S. (2013). /Structural Intimacies: Sexual Stories in the 
Black AIDS Epidemic./ New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Mérida Jiménez, R. M. (ed.) (2019). /De vidas y virus. VIH/sida en las 
culturas hispánicas./ Barcelona: Icaria.
Meruane, L. (2014). /Viajes virales. La crisis del contagio global en la 
escritura del sida./ Santiago, Chile: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Subero, G. (2014). /Representations of HIV/AIDS in Contemporary 
Hispano-American and Caribbean Culture. Cuerpos suiSIDAs./ London / New 
York: Routledge.
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