“Ou eu luto, ou eu morro": ativismo em HIV/aids e processos de subjetivação na experiência da Coletiva Loka de Efavirenz

Abstract

Introduction: The Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (aids) pandemic caused by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has overwhelmingly broken geographic barriers in the world and has raised discussions about sexual identities and practices that were considered as morally promiscuous and divergent. This condition, which is permeated by social markers of difference, has repercussions on the life experience of those living or dealing with HIV/aids, and on the agenda of their demands, personal engagement and collective mobilizations. In the current scenario, recent political and institutional demands have been based on the optimism of considering the advances in antiretroviral therapies as the only measure of treatment and as a definitive answer in the field of prevention, leaving aside issues such as human rights, social inequalities, among others. Objectives: To understand the relationship between HIV/aids activism in networks and social media and the production of the "person living with HIV/aids" (processes of subjectivation) from the Coletiva Loka of Efavirenz. Methodology: This is a research anchored in the theoretical-methodological framework of Ethnography. Data were collected through individual interviews, socioeconomic questionnaire, insider participant observation on the social network Facebook. Fieldwork took place from March 2017 to July 2018. The interlocutors were six activists, mostly blacks and browns, from the outskirts and/or countryside, with dissident sexual orientations and gender identities, and that were university students. The analysis took place through thematic categorization. Results: The performance of the Loka de Efavirenz is decentralized and horizontal. The objectives of the interlocutors in the social network included reporting life experiences with illness, making it public and available, disseminating the material they produced, and enabling an intersectional discussion of the epidemic through claims that included local and global demands such as therapeutic management, adherence to treatment and institutional racism. The main mobilization strategies were: elaboration of virtual content, production and presentation of artistic performances, actions with posters in universities, participation in national and international events, seminars, debates, acts and public demonstrations. Through mediation between different worlds and realities, activists see the existence of two "aids": AIDS related to biomedical and epidemiological aspects, and Aid$ resulting from historical oppressions, subordination and economic interests that perpetuate social inequalities, inserted under the new effects of biopolitics or of a necropolitics. In addition, participants gathered key information on HIV/aids activism, such as social achievements in health and politics, coupled with the social, biological, and political impacts of the epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s. Conclusion: The current scenario presents itself as a political and social challenge to confront the HIV/aids epidemic and to strengthen activism. Thus, the results of this research can support intersectoral professional practices based on human rights and health needs of activists and people living with HIV/aids, in addition to increasing the political visibility of the topic and those involved, reinforcing the strategic and mediation between civil society and the state in the claim and maintenance of social rights.