Authors
Caroline Rusterholz, George J Severs
Published in
Modern British history (Oxford, England). Volume 37. Issue 1. Jan 08, 2026.
Abstract
This article examines the sexual and reproductive health experiences of eight people who migrated to London in the late twentieth century from Kenya, Zambia, Nigeria, Sudan, and Uganda. Their experiences were captured through an oral history partnership with NAZ, a sexual health charity run by and for racialized people in London. They illuminate the informal processes of sexual and reproductive health knowledge production before migrating to London, such as jokes and gossip, in the face of minimal formal education on these topics. All of the interviewees studied in this article are living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and moved to London in their early twenties. In this article, we pay close attention to their experiences of sexual and reproductive health services and HIV and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), which provide novel understandings of the ways in which such services were experienced by those who migrated to London. By listening attentively to the interviews and deploying oral history theories around memory and narrative, we argue that migration and the generational shifts of the interviewees acted as major turning points in their sexual and reproductive health journeys by increasing exposure to such services. While often empowering, such encounters were, at times, also experienced as alienating or racist. In addition, the interviews reveal how British public health campaigns resonated internationally and were closely entangled in migration narratives. The interviewees' experiences of HIV/AIDS demonstrate the multiplicity of HIV/AIDS histories, offering new perspectives on HIV/AIDS experiences in Britain.
PMID:
42068585
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 03 May 2026.
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