Anthony K J Smith

Reflecting on four decades of social science research in HIV, and future challenges, this session considered the social production of knowledge in HIV. The social sciences (and other cognate disciplines) have a key role in in understanding meaning making practices and wider structural processes shaping HIV responses, including stigma.

Chaired by Associate Professor Sarah Bernays (University of Sydney), this session began with Professor Gary Dowsett (La Trobe University). Dowsett reflected on four decades of social research and argued that social science was indispensable in moving beyond quantifying HIV, introducing ideas about structural drivers and social determinants to public health, and revealing how the epidemic is deeply shaped by knowledge systems, cultures, politics, economics, and history. Professor Kane Race (University of Sydney) questioned the international target of zero discrimination, urging us to move beyond catch-all slogans and consider stigma as a social process. Race emphasised the importance of attending to the personal and intimate lives of affected communities in their specific locality to better understand cascades, targets, and health. Dr Catherine Dodds (University of Bristol) offered a provocation to reimagine and how we think about stigma. Drawing on the ‘stigma machine’ (Imogen Tyler, 2023), Dodds reflected that an individualised apolitical conception of stigma dominates international HIV research and targets, and that social scientists may be complicit in producing this knowledge that often elides structural inequalities and power dynamics. The following panel discussion and Q&A unpacked the vital work needed to better research and transform power relations that shape HIV.

The promise of biomedical innovations cannot be achieved without understanding broader structural determinants and power relations, as evidenced by many gaps in treatment and prevention. Social science must challenge individualising ideas about HIV, and instead work with and empower communities, and consider complex questions slowly and critically. It was also argued that we must reflect on who owns the means of production in research (e.g., the whiteness of the session’s panel), and who gets to share in power (e.g., decolonising research). Looming crises and problems (climate change, authoritarian regimes, panics about LGBTQIA+ people) require critical social research more than ever.