Professional Activism

The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Sweden accelerated the hybridisation of welfare, as volunteer organisations underwent rapid processes of professionalization and assumed growing responsibilities for the distribution of welfare services. A sense of urgency prompted by terrifying horror scenarios spread in the media and helped motivate politicians and fund-giving agencies to channel large amounts of money into volunteer organisations like RFSL (the National Union for Sexual Equality), RFSU (the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education) and Noaks Ark, as well as to the various self-help groups that emerged for HIV-positive men who had sex with men, drug users, haemophiliacs, and, to a lesser degree, sex workers. The article focus on how these volunteer organisations – old and new – interacted with the state and the public health sector, how they interacted – and came into conflict – with each other, and how the membership-oriented activities changed over time due to professionalisation and to the introduction of anti-retroviral drugs in 1996.