HIV Technologies

Abstract

This edited collection addresses the governance of the HIV and AIDS pandemic with reference to the social aspects of technology in international contexts. The term ‘technology’ is used to encompass medical technologies such as HIV treatment, but also other ‘technologies’ of health care, including psychosocial and social interventions and communications media applied to moderate HIV’s impact and to prevent HIV transmission. HIV technologies of the biomedical kind have become a focus in the research and policy literature. Policy frameworks advocate for close attention to the relationship between HIV treatment and prevention (Global HIV Prevention Working Group, 2008: 6; see also Mykhalovskiy, this volume) and an address to ‘psychosocial’ factors (UNAIDS, 2009b), as well as integration between HIV and other health and social policy initiatives, around for instance TB, drug use, and gender-based violence (UNAIDS, 2009a). Researchers have warned of the need to consider the social and cultural dimensions of biomedical interventions such as male circumcision (Peltzer et al., 2007). This volume contributes to these debates by investigating the social and cultural dimensions of HIV technologies that find expression in different parts of the world.