The Pilgrim Must Embark

This 25-minute ethnographic video documents the communication practices in a residential facility for persons living with AIDS. Taped at Bonaventure House in Chicago -- one of the largest of these facilities in the United States -- the video focuses on the inherent tensions of community living that permeate the practical, personal and communal lives of residents. Interviews with residents and staff, woven together with extensive footage of the home environment, clearly illustrate the...
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This 25-minute ethnographic video documents the communication practices in a residential facility for persons living with AIDS. Taped at Bonaventure House in Chicago -- one of the largest of these facilities in the United States -- the video focuses on the inherent tensions of community living that permeate the practical, personal and communal lives of residents. Interviews with residents and staff, woven together with extensive footage of the home environment, clearly illustrate the diversity of the membership, everyday living routines, house maintenance, group governance, communication practices, social attachment, death and dying, and rituals for grieving.

The issues explored in this video are discussed in Adelman and Frey, "The Pilgrim Must Embark: Creating and Sustaining Community in a Residential Facility for People with AIDS" -- a chapter appearing in LEA's Group Communication in Thntext: Studies of Natural Groups,edited by Lawrence R. Frey.