Bodies, Virus and Moral Economies: the HIV Test

Abstract

In this article I try to explore a possible conceptualization of the body and subjectification technologies, considering them not as different entities but in their mutual conformation. To do this I propose to review the transformation of a medical technology, HIV testing, into a preventive technol-ogy. I am particularly interested in addressing the HIV test from the point of view of the bodies that it enacts in specific moral economies. I work through the narrative of the circumstances in which some men, mostly gays and seropositive, took the HIV test from two perspectives: first, I try to place bodies and technologies in their specific contexts of relations and experience. In a second step, I try to link these micro-processes to wider changes in the technology itself, underlining its historicity, and framing the HIV test in the changing political management of the epidemic. I argue that this perspective should In this article I try to explore a possible conceptualization of the body and subjectification technologies, considering them not as different entities but in their mutual conformation. To do this I propose to review the transformation of a medical technology, HIV testing, into a preventive technol-ogy. I am particularly interested in addressing the HIV test from the point of view of the bodies that it enacts in specific moral economies. I work through the narrative of the circumstances in which some men, mostly gays and seropositive, took the HIV test from two perspectives: first, I try to place bodies and technologies in their specific contexts of relations and experience. In a second step, I try to link these micro-processes to wider changes in the technology itself, underlining its historicity, and framing the HIV test in the changing political management of the epidemic. I argue that this perspective should.