PrEPped Intimacies from Berlin: Pharmaceutical HIV-Prophylaxis and Biopolitical Hopes in Transnational Colombia

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Hansjörg Dilger
• Subject Area: Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 468249798

Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) refers to the preventative use of antiretroviral medication. When taken daily or 'on-demand' before a 'risk contact', it has proven to be highly effective in preventing HIV infection. Since September 2019, statutory health insurance in Germany covers the costs of PrEP for people at an increased risk of infection, particularly for men who have sex with men (MSM). The DFG-funded project "PrEPped Intimacies in Berlin" situates PrEP as an affective, discursive, and material formation in the lives, experiences, and bodies of its users as well as in the specific context of Berlin, a city renowned for its sexual permissiveness and high international appeal. In the first funding phase, it ethnographically investigated how the pharmaceutical prophylaxis shapes embodied subjects and transforms intimate encounters - together with the health publics, subcultural discourses, and therapeutic situations within which PrEP itself is situated. The proposed follow-up project, "PrEPped Intimacies from Berlin", follows discourses, practices and individuals identified in the first phase and explores how PrEP is situated within transnational connections between Berlin and Colombia. It thus "decentres" the previous focus on prevention discourses and infrastructures in Western Europe by adopting a perspective on HIV prevention as a transnational concern and field of conflict. The notion of "biopolitical hope" encompasses both the expectations placed on biomedical technologies and the normative effects that an optimistic orientation towards pharmaceuticals can generate. In light of international health organizations, local prevention projects, activist and artistic networks, and potential users pushing for broader access to PrEP in Colombia, the follow-up project inquires into transnationally circulating expectations of pharmaceutical HIV prophylaxis and local negotiations of unequal access: What hopes and disappointments does the HIV prophylaxis PrEP evoke in transnational connections between Berlin and Colombia regarding ideas and practices of (queer) sexuality, sexual health and global (in)justice? To answer this question, a multi-sited ethnography in the fields of activism, prevention and queer subculture is proposed. Specifically, the follow-up project ethnographically explores (1) transnational solidarity actions of a Berlin-based HIV activist group, (2) the encounter of international and local aid economies in the Colombian capital Bogotá, and (3) the discourse on HIV/AIDS within the queer ballroom scene in Pereira, a semi-peripheral Colombian city.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Colombia
• Cooperation Partner: Diego Vallejo Díaz