Exploring Moral Categorizations and Symbolic Boundaries Around People Living With HIV in a Correctional Setting.

For people living with HIV, correctional facilities, such as jails, prisons, and remand centers in Canada are complex environments at the intersection of health, justice, social, and criminal systems. Turning toward experiences, I explore my stories and observations of working with people living with HIV as a registered nurse in a large correctional facility in Western Canada. Based upon a narrative understanding of experience, I inquire into these stories and observations through the application of Mary Douglas' theoretical work on purity versus impurity and Michèle Lamont's symbolic boundary work.