TY - JOUR

T1 - The social life of HIV care

T2 - On the making of ‘care beyond the virus’

AU - Rhodes, Tim

AU - Egede, Siri

AU - Grenfell, Pippa

AU - Paparini, Sara

AU - Duff, Cameron

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2018, The Author(s).

PY - 2019

Y1 - 2019

N2 - Treating care as an effect of material implementations, we use qualitative interviews with people living with HIV in London, most of whom are migrants, to explore care practices linked to clinical treatment delivered as part of the ‘cascade of HIV care’. We consider how HIV care is done, and what HIV care does, drawing on assemblage theory. We ask how is care affected by the situations in which it is enacted? and what contingent forms of care does the HIV care cascade potentiate? A prime actor in the care assemblages revealed in our study is immigration, from which multiple uncertainties flow, including access to vital resources such as housing and income. Yet we also found that clinical HIV care is worked-with in practice to afford multiple forms of care. Here, viral care is translated into matters of vital concern to produce care which extends ‘beyond the virus’. Practices of care beyond the virus afford social protection, including through making-up social relations and networks, and novel modes of sociality. Friendship connections, community organisations and HIV clinics are among the key actors involved. Being attuned to how HIV care is made to matter helps generate new ways of knowing and doing care.

AB - Treating care as an effect of material implementations, we use qualitative interviews with people living with HIV in London, most of whom are migrants, to explore care practices linked to clinical treatment delivered as part of the ‘cascade of HIV care’. We consider how HIV care is done, and what HIV care does, drawing on assemblage theory. We ask how is care affected by the situations in which it is enacted? and what contingent forms of care does the HIV care cascade potentiate? A prime actor in the care assemblages revealed in our study is immigration, from which multiple uncertainties flow, including access to vital resources such as housing and income. Yet we also found that clinical HIV care is worked-with in practice to afford multiple forms of care. Here, viral care is translated into matters of vital concern to produce care which extends ‘beyond the virus’. Practices of care beyond the virus afford social protection, including through making-up social relations and networks, and novel modes of sociality. Friendship connections, community organisations and HIV clinics are among the key actors involved. Being attuned to how HIV care is made to matter helps generate new ways of knowing and doing care.

KW - Assemblage

KW - Care

KW - Care practices

KW - HIV

KW - Qualitative

KW - Social life

U2 - 10.1057/s41292-018-0129-9

DO - 10.1057/s41292-018-0129-9

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85050661149

VL - 14

SP - 321

EP - 344

JO - BioSocieties

JF - BioSocieties

SN - 1745-8552

IS - 3

ER -