To be or not to be sick and tired: Managing the visibility of HIV and HIV-related fatigue.

This paper takes a new direction in exploring HIV-related fatigue by adopting a qualitative interactionist approach. We analyse the social meanings attributed to fatigue among people living with HIV in France, the social gains and losses of its visibility and the social frames that condition the discursive and physical expression of fatigue. The two-part methodology combines content analysis of fifty transcribed unstructured interviews conducted across France and participant observations within four HIV-related associations. Results reveal that the visibility of fatigue is associated with the visibility of this stigmatised illness. The expression of fatigue is therefore closely linked with disclosure and concerns about HIV stigma. The degree to which HIV and HIV-related fatigue are rendered (in)visible also depends on structural factors including gender prescriptions, but also context effects such as the type of social or “care” relations involved in a given social frame of interaction.