On Spectacle, Institutional Mythmaking, and the Politics of an Epidemic That Refuses to Disappear After more than a decade of working in the HIV milieu, I have come to accept something I once resisted: there will be no end to the HIV epidemic. More than that, I have begun to question whether “ending the epidemic” was ever a realistic goal at all. Perhaps the promise of an ending has always been a myth—one that, paradoxically, helps sustain the very systems through which the epidemic continues. Conspiratorial thinking notwithstanding, the United States—and, from there, much of the world—will almost certainly fail to achieve the major HIV goals established for 2030: dramatic reductions in new infections and HIV-related deaths, alongside viral suppression for nearly everyone living with HIV. But why? I do not believe the answer is simply that powerful people want “us” dead. Nor is it because we lack the infrastructure to treat and prevent HIV. It cannot be explained entirely by inadequate...
Writings in Anthropology & Public Health