Narrativas, memórias e práticas sociopolíticas: uma etnografia da mobilização social e da resposta coletiva à epidemia HIV/AIDS no Rio Grande do Norte

Abstract

This text presents a master's research that offers an ethnographic analysis of the sociopolitical mobilization of response to HIV and AIDS in the urban context of Natal and Mossoró, the two largest cities in Rio Grande do Norte state. The dissertation aimed to understand the narratives, practices and meanings of response to the epidemic among activists, patient groups, managers and health professionals in the face of inequalities and challenges in adherence to Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) and HIV prevention. I tried to pay attention to how the collective and individual projects of my interlocutors were elaborated and their internal reasons to the point of facing the gossip, cooperating or diverging with managers and other participants of the mobilization, besides dedicating time, economic investment, physical and emotional effort. In this ethnographic research, I performed participant observation in different environments, such as ceremonies, hearings and public manifestations, celebrations, hospitals and specialized care services, emphasizing the use of spaces by the interlocutors. Simultaneously, in-depth interviews with activists, health professionals, patients and public managers were produced, as well as analysis of the local press and the use of photographs to broaden perceptions about the researched field. In this way, I present an overview of the socio-political mobilization of HIV and AIDS, while noting the particularities of these different collectives and social actors. I could see a strongly contested social world, full of collective and individual projects in the fight against the epidemic and crossed by multiple social inequalities that decisively affect the lives of thousands of people from this region living and coliving with HIV. I also perceived communication, narrative, memory and testimony of trauma as powerful instruments of political action. Therefore, this research seeks to contribute to the anthropological discussion about HIV and AIDS in the context of Rio Grande do Norte, at a critical moment for facing the epidemic in the state, affected by the exponential growth of people diagnosed with HIV and people dying from AIDS. A present that insists on approaching a painful chapter from the past.