Troubling the Angels Revisited

Abstract

2007 marks the 10th anniversary of Patti Lather and Chris Smithies' (1997) Troubling the Angels: Women Living with HIV/AIDS. In this article the author revisits the methodology of Lather and Smithies toward an understanding of how this intercepts the research object of HIV/AIDS. The author chose this work partly as an exemplar of Lather's larger ouvre, interpreted through the lens of "dissident scholarship," partly because she believes women's sexualities constitute a rich form of cultural text, inviting critical methodological reading. Although her primary motivation is methodological, therefore, this is not with the intention of privileging process over content. Indeed, working through Troubling the Angels in this way has served to substantiate the view that sexuality research is significant in its own right and a signifier of many other absent/present aspects of education and the educative act, at this moment in time.