Caring for Place with Aids Memorial Quilts in Dublin, Ireland

abstract

This paper presents empirical material drawn from an intentionally local AIDS quilting project in a disadvantaged inner-city district of Dublin, Ireland. The paper aims to address two key gaps in human geography. Firstly, by examining the AIDS quilts through their primary functions of therapy, activism, and commemoration, this paper finds an emphasis on place, rather than names that foregrounds the geographical, as opposed to merely rhetorical dimensions of the AIDS quilt. In doing so, it questions the forms of political community that have been claimed through the more well-studied NAMES Memorial Quilt. Secondly, by conceptualising AIDS quilts through the lens of humanistic geography, it reflects upon the act of quilting as producing what Yi-Fu Tuan described as a “field of care,” a place that may be more attentive to the structural AIDS vulnerability visited upon affected communities. It concludes with implications for the study of AIDS interventions amid wounded cities. As these damaged communities seek ways to repair themselves, the quilts act as paradigmatic cases of care for others, through care for place.

Keywords:

• AIDS
• AIDS quilt; care
• Ireland
• place

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Louise Amoore, Sarah Atkinson, Mike Crang, Jonathan Darling, Gerry Kearns, Siobhan McGrath, Olivia Mason, Philip Steinberg and three anonymous reviewers for their very helpful advice on this paper. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the AAG Boston, 2017 at a session entitled: ‘Vital Geographies’, and the author would like to thank the organisers, Gerry Kearns and Simon-Reid Henry, as well as feedback which was received as this session.

Notes

¹ Brouwer, (2007, 705) uses the term “promiscuous mobility” to connect the “endless and vigorous circulation” of the quilt, with what he sees as it’s more “erotic and immodest dimensions.” For Brouwer, the circulation of the Quilt is significant, for it contributes to it’s pedagogical functions, as well as the promotion of collective memory.