Colloquium Series: Celeste Watkins-Hayes, Northwestern University

Celeste Watkins-Hayes, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Northwestern University

Betwixt and Between: Middle Class Women Living with HIV/AIDS

Abstract:

Previous literature suggests that the lack of economic resources reduces women’s abilities to limit their exposure to HIV and dramatically shapes their lives while living with the virus. Less is known about the economic, health, and social experiences of middle class women living with HIV/AIDS, who likely possess a broader base of resources to address their diagnosis. In this paper, Watkins-Hayes highlights how middle class women navigate their HIV/AIDS status in ways that differ markedly from their more impoverished counterparts using ethnographic data collected from a racially and economically diverse group of women living with HIV/AIDS in Chicago. Watkins-Hayes argues that ironically, middle class women are more likely to adopt coping strategies that leave them vulnerable to social isolation, with a less robust network of social service providers and people living with HIV/AIDS on whom they can rely for HIV-related information and social support. This paper will also highlight some of the difficulties around recruiting middle class women into HIV/AIDS studies and argues that the invisibility of this population may leave policy makers and service providers without a proper understanding of the unique challenges and needs confronting these women.

Dr. Celeste Watkins-Hayes is Chair of the Department of African American Studies and Associate Professor of Sociology and African American Studies at Northwestern University. In addition to her faculty appointment, Watkins-Hayes is a Faculty Fellow at Northwestern’s Institute for Policy Research and Cells to Society (C2S): The Center on Social Disparities and Health. Her research focuses on urban poverty; social policy; HIV/AIDS; non-profit and government organizations; and race, class, and gender. Her first book, The New Welfare Bureaucrats: Entanglements of Race, Class, and Policy Reform (University of Chicago Press, 2009), was a Finalist for the 2009 C. Wright Mills Book Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems and the 2011 Max Weber Book Award from the American Sociological Association. Dr. Watkins-Hayes is also Principal Investigator of the Health, Hardship, and Renewal Study, which explores the economic and social survival strategies of women living with HIV/AIDS in the Chicago area (www.hhrstrategies.org). In 2009, she received a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Investigator Award and a National Science Foundation Early Career Award to conduct this research. She has published numerous articles in journals and edited volumes including Social Problems, The Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, The State of Black America, 2001, and The DuBois Review. Dr. Watkins-Hayes has been profiled in ESSENCE magazine, USA Today Weekendmagazine, and the Chicago Sun-Times. She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Sociology from Harvard University and a B.A. from Spelman College, where she graduated summa cum laude. Dr. Watkins-Hayes currently serves on the Board of Trustees of Spelman College and the Advisory Board of the Spelman College Women’s Research and Resource Center.