Ways of knowing, ways of living: Learning, knowledge and experience in sexual practice and drug consumption

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This symposium examines how people learn about, and respond to, blood-borne viruses and alcohol and other drug use. It looks at how core issues – risk, harm reduction, pleasure and health – are understood and incorporated into sexual and drug-use practices, and how this understanding is communicated and learned, both formally and informally.

The first part of the symposium focuses on sex and HIV. It explores how people learn about sex, and how viruses like HIV – and the practices linked to their transmission – have shaped understandings of sex and sexual practices. Presentations will examine how HIV prevention and broader sexual health concepts are taught and learned across formal and everyday settings as well as explore the relationship between those who produce health education messages and those who receive them.

The second part turns to alcohol and other drug use, examining current drug education approaches alongside young people's lived experience of substance use. Bringing these two forms of learning into conversation, speakers will consider what each offers young people who use alcohol and other drugs. The program includes researchers in HIV and drug use, health promotion practitioners, and peer educators.

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