Producers of information about HIV prevention as a means of improving LGBTIQQ health

Production of HIV Prevention Knowledge and Deciphering Non-Dominant Prevention Data

MARPs in Uganda a local NGO, embarked on synthesizing reports from all its activities and uses standard knowledge development methods. Under the program “structural barriers to ART adherence in the Global South,” one of the themes is identifying the producers of information about HIV prevention. HIV prevention knowledge is produced by diverse actors, including activists, consultants and intellectuals who are located in varied sites ranging from CBO’s, CSO’s, FBO’s, NGO’s, universities, social movements and state agencies. These different actors produce distinct ideas about HIV prevention. Some produce knowledge through activism, action, research or policy-making. This makes HIV prevention a contested term. HIV prevention can be construed as concrete, material actions and processes; or it can be discourse.HIV prevention with the intention to establish infrastructure for testing, supply ARVs and attendant care support was tagged to a certain way of knowledge development that is rooted in Western histories, values and norms. It has been reproduced massively by educational institutions, academic work, scientific research and through popular cultural productions such as radio advertisements and theatre. This dominant discourse about HIV prevention has produced powerful institutions of governments or civil society which have capacity to raise the number of people testing, increasing the number on ARVs and reducing transmission of HIV. Almost all theory, research and money pumped into the HIV prevention industry is around these three. On the other hand, human rights and tailored individualized approaches are yet to receive same support or legitimacy. This means that there are contexts of HIV prevention thought and geographies of prevention they produce as well as subjects they include or exclude in particular theorizations of HIV prevention. According to UNAIDS, to address these scenarios prevention has to be characterized as HIV testing, treatment  scale up, primary prevention response comprising of biomedical , behavioural and structural dimensions, closely integrated with treatment.