Analysis of the HIV/AIDS Policies from a Gender and Race Intersectional Perspective

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the HIV/AIDS policies, particularly campaigns, in the perspective of race and gender intersection. Such perspective enables the understanding of how gender oppression and race oppression intersect each other, whereas, on the other hand, political action deconstructs these inequalities and enables the transformation of institutions in the promotion of gender and race equality. The ethnographic data I analyzed were collected during a qualitative research that focused on the actions carried out by organizations of the black movement and on their demands before the public power for participation in the struggle against the spread of the epidemics among the black population of the Southern region of Brazil. In the first part, I employ the concept of biopower to analyze the relation between race, gender and health. In the second part, I analyze the representations of body and subject activated in two nationwide HIV/AIDS campaigns centered on the image of a black woman, and the debates they brought about. The analysis reveals the centrality of the body as the expression of the black women movement's political struggle, stressing on and questioning the social vulnerability that results from the impact of biopolitics on the bodies, especially when gender and race are brought together.