Socialising the Biomedical Turn in HIV Prevention

This book addresses the major challenge for HIV prevention: that is, to reach beyond the limitations of biomedical approaches to disease and to design prevention strategies informed by and connected with the social realities of people’s lives.

The authors argue that until the world focuses its attention on the social issues carried and revealed by AIDS, it is unlikely that HIV transmission will be eradicated or even significantly reduced. The book argues that we are currently witnessing the remedicalisation or the continuing biomedicalisation of HIV prevention, which began in earnest after the development of successful HIV treatment, and that this biomedical trajectory continues with the increasing push to use HIV treatments as prevention, undermining what has been in many countries a successful prevention response. This wide-ranging study argues that HIV prevention involves enabling people and communities to discuss sex, sexuality and drug use and, informed by these discussion, devising locally effective strategies for promoting safe sexual and drug injection practices.

‘Combining insightful analysis with trenchant critique, this book offers a readable and refreshing new perspective on what must be done.’ - Peter Aggleton, University of New South Wales

‘Kippax and Stevenson elegantly argue a difficult but critical message that needs to be heard.’ - Alan Whiteside OBE, Balsillie School of International Affairs, Wilfrid Laurier University and University of KwaZulu-Natal