Experimental dispositives for HIV cure: agents, assemblages and becomings

• Grant number: 19/22295-9
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): July 01, 2021
• Effective date (End): February 28, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Theory of Anthropology
• Principal researcher: Daniela Tonelli Manica
• Grantee: Kris Herik de Oliveira
• Home Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The cure of HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) is a theme crossed by multiple agents, knowledge, practices, institutions, discourses, imaginaries and affects. In four decades of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, it was effectively achieved in only two cases, in Berlin and London patients, after experimental procedures involving stem cell transplants. More recently, the administration of a therapeutic vaccine in São Paulo promoted the long-term remission of the virus in a patient, indicating the possibility of the third case of cure. Through a socioanthropological approach, the general objective of this research project is to map the configurations and developments of these three experimental dispositives. In this context, intends: i) map the meshwork of agents and assemblages of the therapies; ii) promote relationships between cases to think about the body's materialities, scales and ontological transformations, and disease and healing processes; iii) reflect on becomings and speculations of a future without HIV/AIDS. For this, the research makes the collection and analysis of scientific, journalistic and autobiographical documents, as well as interviews with researchers. And, through an assembly procedure with the materials, he tries to experiment in different graphies compositions that help to think about categories and modes of expression. It is hoped that the research can contribute critically and creatively to the discussion on the cure of HIV and, more broadly, offer theoretical and methodological subsidies for investigations aimed at other therapeutic dispositives. (AU)