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Norway, gave more than 1 per cent of its Gross
National Income (GNI) in aid (1.17 per cent),
with the DAC average being 0.33 per cent of
GNI. In 2003, no DAC members donated as
much as 1 per cent of GNI, and the overall
DAC average declined to a quarter of one per
cent. For the USA, the figures were 0.21 per
cent in 1990 and 0.15 per cent in 2003
(UNDP, 2005, p. 278). Other forms of emer-
gency and short-term relief aid are provided
under the auspices of a wide variety of agencies,
including humanitarian and non-governmen-
tal organizations. With an endowment of nearly
$40 billion in 2008, the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation is set to become a major player
among international aid agencies. jglSuggested reading
Gibson, Andersson, Ostrom and Shivakumar
(2005); Kolko (1988); Mosley, Harrigan and
Toye (1991); Payer (1982); United Nations
Development Program (UNDP) (2005).AIDS Geographical perspectives on Acquired
Immune Deficiency Syndrome, its causes and
consequences, have taken three related tacks.
The earliest was from the discipline’sspatial
sciencetradition (e.g. Shannon, Pyle and
Bashshur, 1991). This approach treated
AIDS as a newcomer in a long line of non-
human infective agents (bacteria, viruses etc.),
such as cholera, influenza, tuberculosis and
malaria, that medical geographers could model
(seemedical geography). Work in this tack
mapped the spatial distribution, and sought to
model thediffusionof the disease (especially
its various strains) predictively.
This approach was quickly outpaced by pol-
itical and cultural geographers, who exposed
thehomophobia and heterosexismoften at
work in earlier spatial science approaches, as
well as reflecting a postmodern trend that
challenged the primacy of science to guide
geographers’ approach to studying the
world. (For instance, this work often exposed
spatial science’s embarrassingly awkward en-
counters with culture.) Rather than reductively
conceptualizing the virus as a non-human/bio-
logical entity (as spatial science had), this
scholarship emphasized the virus and its syn-
drome as a thoroughly social, rather than bio-
logical, phenomenon. It therefore explored the
multiple meanings at stake in transmission,
prevention and care. It showed how various
structures such aspatriarchy, biomedical he-
gemony and racism, in places disempower
people living with HIV. It especially reframed
AIDS as apolitical geography, raising ques-tions of equity andsocial justicein particular
places. In this way, HIV-positive people were
reconceptualized not as passive nodes of diffu-
sion (with all the attendant blame), but as
active agents struggling to prevent further in-
fection, and to respond caringly and humanely
to the ‘glocal’ dimensions (seeglocalization/
glocality) of the pandemic. In this way,
geographers’ complex response to AIDS was
a synecdoche for the epistemological and
methodological debates within/betweenmed-
ical geographyand geographies ofhealth
and health care, but also the growing
interest infeminismand the rise of queer
geography (seequeer theory). It thereby ac-
celerated and intensified links between that
sub-discipline and a wide array of others.
This work also broached the nature–society
duality, exemplifying for some the incorpor-
ation of thebodyand disease into the explod-
ing field ofpolitical ecology.
Presently, work in geography continues on
thesocial constructionof the syndrome and
the various social identities of sexuality,
race, class and gender (e.g. Raimondo,
2005). In more contemporary work on HIV
and AIDS, there has also been a return to a
more global (or glocal) perspective (Craddock,
2000b). There has also been a much needed
return to a regional focus on AIDS inafrica
(e.g. Oppong, 1998; Kesby, 1999), but also
the global South more generally, bringing the
pandemic into developmentgeography, as
well as globalization and geographies of
neo-liberalism(e.g. questions on access to
expensive, life-saving drugs in the context of
free trade and market hegemony; or questions
of safer-sex education in the context of an
ascendant social conservatism and homopho-
bia in social and international aid policy).
In this way, more recent works show a much
greater appreciation of the multiplicity of
social geographies of AIDS than the previous
two strands of research. mbSuggested reading
Craddock, Oppong, Ghosh and Kalipeni (2003);
Shannon, Pyle and Bashshur (1991).algorithm A problem-solving procedure with
set rules. Many algorithms can be represented
asdecision-makingtrees and translated into
computer code, allowing complex tasks to be
tackled efficiently. rjalienation A term derived from the Latin
wordalienus, meaning ‘of or belonging to an-
other’. Of Judeo-Christian origin, the conceptGregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_A Final Proof page 22 31.3.2009 9:44pmAIDS