Donna B. Barnes

Donna B. Barnes is a PhD-level sociologist who specializes in medical sociological analyses of social issues for people with HIV, and people who provide their medical and social services.  Her emphasis is on the sociology of women’s health and illness, analyzing gender, race, class, age, and sexual orientation. During the residency, she worked on a publication entitled, “You can even possibly have a child”: Reproduction in the Lives of HIV Positive Women. This is the culmination of a four-year study funded by the National Institute of Health.  The work has been presented in various stages at a variety of national and international conferences, most recently at the XIV International AIDS Conference in Barcelona in 2002. The Anderson Center residency allowed Barnes to focus on this one task. As a sociologist she has had the opportunity to interview face-to-face women with HIV/AIDS in Oakland, California; Chicago, Illinois; and Rochester, NY. From 1995 to the present, she has listened to, recorded and analyzed over one hundred women’s stories of their reproductive decisions, experiences of being told their HIV positive test results, substances abuse and recovery, child custody battles, family support and abuses, and disclosure of HIV and family secrets to their children. She learned from women mostly different from herself in race/ethnicity, class and disease status what living with HIV/AIDS means. Their stories became a part of her, and influenced her life in ways in which she is still learning. They are her concern.