Lessons from the Damned. Queers, Whores, and Junkies respond to AIDS

Lessons from the Damned challenges the notion that public health theories and official organizations have the greatest impact on the fight against AIDS. Instead, Stoller looks closely at the ways the most disenfranchised - the poor, people of color, drug users, gay men and lesbians, and women - have built social movements to fight the epidemic. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research and the words of the activists themselves, as well as the literature of social movements and theories of bureaucracy, Stoller offers guidelines for dealing with diversity and conflict and also with both theoretical and practical perspectives on cross-community and international organizing.