The field of HIV/AIDS and global health is in a constant process of emergence. Indeed, it is impossible to conceive of it as a uniform whole: it consists of multiple fields and dynamics that connect only partially – and often unpredictably – to each other. Given the pace of scientific developments and the diversity of local experiences of disease, the Emerging Issues section seeks to feature critical and engaged analyses of what is happening now in different local and international contexts: how new developments in HIV policy, science and practice are playing out ‘on the ground’; and how local developments are being apprehended by, or entering into, broader frames of knowledge and practice.

Emergence has been defined as the way in which patterns and systems arise out of a multiplicity of simpler interactions.  Importantly, these patterns represent something new and cannot be reduced to their constituent elements.   The term is an apt prism through which to view the contemporary fields of HIV/AIDS and global health, as everywhere new combinations of treatment, behavior, drugs, norms, meanings and devices are coming into encounter with one another, or are set to come into encounter with one another, with a range of unpredictable effects.  To this end, this section of Transcriptions seeks local and grounded accounts of HIV dynamics, practices and experiences, as they are emerging, that clearly convey their stakes and significance.  What is materializing in relation to HIV and global health today?

We are looking for contributions from scholars, activists, practitioners and others engaged in these concerns.  Possible topics include:

·      The impact of medication on sexual, drug and other cultural practices
·      Emerging social and political identities in relation to HIV and other health programs
·      Treatment as Prevention: local responses, developments, resistances
·      New clinical practices, technologies and assemblages
·      Experiences and politics of clinical trials in local settings
·      Conceptions and practices of citizenship in new therapeutic conditions
·      Gendered, sexual, and drug practices and risk subjectivities
·      Recent biomedical debates: their stakes and presumptions
·      Relations between cultural and legal environments, treatment and prevention
·      Conditions of international aid and the impact of funding decisions
·      The political economy of local programs and practices
·      Ethnographic perspectives on HIV sector practices
·      Emerging policy paradigms and their implications
·      New ways of thinking: Conceptual and practical innovations in HIV social and cultural research

Please contact us at transcriptions@somatosphere.net if you’d like to submit a piece or have a suggestion for a topic that should be covered.

 

Emerging Issues Editor: Kane Race