Building the HIVe: Disrupting Biomedical HIV/AIDS Research With Gay Men, Other Men Who Have Sex With Men, and Transgenders

• In Event: Roundtable Session 100
  In Roundtable Session: Challenging Epistemologies and Methodologies That Frame Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Research

Abstract

Networked and digital technologies now mediate the sexual behaviors of many gay men, other men that have sex with men and transgenders, challenging the effectiveness of biomedical HIV/AIDS research and prevention practices. Driven by the normative positivist philosophy of science, these approaches—while paramount to fighting the epidemic—have neglected to rethink their ontological and epistemological assumptions when confronting the social drivers of HIV. Building the HIVe responds by forefronting community-based and led sociological HIV/AIDS research and prevention that addresses digitally mediated and driven sexual behaviors. The HIVe disrupts biomedical approaches by building an accessible and dynamic social science research community engaged in reflexive performativity to improve the health and human rights of marginalized communities disproportionately at risk of HIV/AIDS.

Authors

• Christopher Walsh, The Open University

• Gurmit Singh, University of Leeds