Sexual politics and HIV/AIDS activism: the experience of Loka de Efavirenz

Abstract

This article describes and analyzes, from an ethnographic perspective, how people participating in the Loka de Efavirenz Collective perceive, experience, and face the effects of AIDS in their daily lives, in order to contribute to the understanding of the new forms of HIV/AIDS activism that emerged in the 2010s in Brazil and their relationship as processes of subjectivation and construction of informal care networks. We show how the members of Loka articulate themselves as subjects crossed by the HIV/AIDS stigma, claiming the exercise of their sexualities and identities marked by gender, race, and class. In this way, they enter the dispute for rights through the production of knowledge and actions that acquire strength in the production of a network of care beyond health services. The analysis of the Collective’s practices and elaborations highlights AIDS as a privileged lens to situate the challenges, struggles, discussions, and debates that cut across modes of regulating erotic-sexual practices and gender expressions, reflecting broader social tensions and changes.