Active ageing and unfinished resilience amongst older heterosexual adults living with HIV in the United Kingdom

The UK is seeing a change in the lives of people living with HIV. Due to the advent of AntiRetroviral Therapy (ART) in the mid-1990s, the landscape of HIV has changed rapidly in terms of people living longer with the virus. Due to this, the first major cohort population of older people will now grow older with the virus. This sociological study examines the lived experiences of older heterosexual people living with HIV in the UK. This study examines the lived experiences of ageing, to explore active ageing and resilience building within older heterosexuals living with HIV, despite the socio-historical backdrop as a marginalised demographic in wider HIV narratives. Furthermore, it reconceptualises Sontag’s concept of ‘social death’ with HIV, to the contemporary long shadow of social death, recognising the changing nature of HIV-related stigma in the post-ART era. To gain insight into the lives of older heterosexual people and how they navigate this post-ART world, this study uses the theoretical lens of both active ageing and unfinished resilience to understand the lived experiences of older heterosexual people living with HIV.

Taking an interpretivist epistemological approach, and an in-depth life narrative method with nine older heterosexual people living with HIV, three key themes emerged in the data analysis: changing bodies, changing communities, and changing mindsets and futures. The research found that despite their socio-historical invisibility and marginalisation, older heterosexual people engaged in a process of unfinished resilience and active ageing. Notwithstanding uncertainty about their own bodies and sense of community, they actively engaged in social networks and took part in future goal setting, as opposed to the absolutist effects of stigma and the long shadow of social death, facilitating social withdrawal. This study represents an original contribution to the field of the ‘Sociology of HIV’ by bringing to light the voices of an under-researched group using these theoretical approaches, and the findings that it produced.