Goldsmiths - University of London

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The HIV Project

This project incorporates a number of sociologically orientated activities focused on various aspects of the HIV epidemic. In doing so, it brings together social science and humanities scholars, activists, biomedical scientists and policy analysts who are engaged in a multiplicity of ways with the virus. The project is ongoing and open in its membership and focus, with a strong emphasis on analyses generated by methodologies under the rubric of Science and Technology Studies.

Activities:

Establishment of the International Association of Social Scientists and Humanties Scholars on HIV (IASSH) (working title) to facilitate a broader role for the social sciences in tackling the challenges of the HIV epidemic. http://www.iaohss.org/

The contribution of new methodological approaches in Science and Technology Studies to enhance the HIV field's capacity to engage reflexively with the effects of its interventions. The research is led by Dr Marsha Rosengarten and Professor Mike Michael. To date, it has involved ongoing review of the contributory work of HIV biomedical science to its specified goals of improving HIV prevention with the provision of:

  • a novel approach to the conceptualisation and scientific design of HIV biomedical prevention technologies.
  • a contribution to the sociologically driven question of 'what is ethics?' through examination of the role of bioethics in the undertaking of so-called 'gold-standard' HIV randomized controlled trials.
  • The PrEP project: the reframing of a newly emergent oral HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis as ontologically multiple and the rendering of bioethics as performative.The project provides social and biomedical scientists, HIV practitioners, policy and operations analysts with new conceptual tools to explain why 'the same' intervention (PrEP but also other HIV interventions) works differently in different contexts as well as novel ways to evaluate and rethink the ethical challenges of 'offshore' biomedical prevention.
  • PhD doctoral program centred on theorizing empirically identified HIV issues/objects.

Richard Boulton, Practices of Care in Paediatric HIV supervised by Dr Marsha Rosengarten and Dr David Oswell. Research conducted with approval of the Paediatrics Department at North Middlesex University Hospital. Whitehead Scholarship.

McKnight, Ulla, 'The vicissitudes of HIV and pregnancy: an ethnographic exploration into an HIV specialist antenatal clinic' supervised by Professor Vikki Bell and Dr Marsha Rosengarten in collaboration with Dr Jane Anderson, Homerton Hospital, Hackney, London, UK.

Pacho, Agata 'Lost in translation: a comparative study of HIV treatment in Poland and the UK' supervised by Dr Marsha Rosengarten and undertaken in collaboration with Dr Mike Youle (Director of HIV Research Royal Free Centre for HIV Medicine and JUTSRI). Research will be also conducted in a Warsaw clinic under the medical direction of Andrzej Horban. Phil Strong memorial Prize winner 2011.

Van der Zaag, Annette-Carina 'The Promise of Vaginal Microbicides: a configuration of women's empowerment ina time of HIV' supervised by Professor Vikki Bell and Dr Marsha Rosengarten.

PhD programme reading group on HIV

In development:

  • A monograph working title 'Innovation and Biomedicine: Ethics, Evidence and Expectation in HIV' co-authored Mike Michael and Marsha Rosengarten, Palgrave Publishers.
  • Collaboration with Carlos Caceres and Kane Race on a demonstration study of the implementation PrEP (HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis in Peru).
  • Collaboration with Dean Murphy on a demonstration study of the implementation of PrEP (HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis) in Australia. Title: HIV Pre-exposure Prophylaxis for men who have sex with men: where does it fit in the Australian HIV prevention landscape.

    Previous activities:

    The 1st International HIV Social Science and Humanities Conference - Locating the Social - was held from 11th-13th June in Durban, South Africa. The conference was co-chaired by: Mary Crewe from the Centre for the Study of AIDS at Pretoria University, South Africa; Susan Kippax from the Social Policy Research Centre, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; and Marsha Rosengarten from the Centre for the study of Invention and Social Process, Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London, United Kingdom. The three co-chairs were supported by a committee of eminent social scientists who are active in HIV related research. http://www.iaohss.org/


    Reframing the social dimensions of HIV in a biomedicalised epidemic: The case of treatment as prevention. A one day conference co-sponsored by Centre for the Study of Intervention and Social Process (CSISP), Evidence for Action, International HIV/AIDS Alliance, National AIDS Manual, Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and funded by the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, 5 March 2010, London, UK.