From “HIV-prophecy” to “HIV-territory”: a case study about young people, subjectivity, and HIV/AIDS activism

Abstract

This article addresses the individual and collective initiatives of young activists in HIV / AIDS and their consequences in the production of subjectivity. The objective was to understand the meanings of the engagement in the social movement of AIDS and its inflections in the production of young people living with HIV/aids, from the experience of an informant. This case study is part of an ethnography about experiences of people living with HIV/aids who lives in the countryside of Brazilian Northeast, made with 17 persons diagnosed more than a year ago. Two reasons guided the selection of the case: being young with an experience built around axes of differentiation and self-enunciation; and for having shown insertion as an activist. Information was gathered using participant observation, and semi-structured interviews. Through contextual, integrated and relational analysis, art as the political language of HIV/aids activism has posed the potential to transform a “virus-prophecy”, a curse that lurks gay men, into a “virus-territory” as a place of access to health care, affections, exchanges and experiences of otherness. Finally, was highlight how the relationship between art and activism in HIV/aids allows the production of positHIVe narratives that stand as a Sociology of Absences.