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Governmentality, subjectivity and AIDS

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Abstract

Our aim in this article is to examine the South African state’s discursive deployment of the African renaissance discourse to prompt a particular kind of HIV positive subjectivity, during the years 1996–2003. We interrogate this connection along two axes. First, the article offers an analysis of the state’s nudging of a new African subjectivity. Second, we examine the state’s representation of a new African HIV positive subjectivity. In this way, the representation of a new African subjectivity – and subsequently a new HIV positive subjectivity – and the realization of the African renaissance discourse of a reconstructed Africa were mutually supporting. A critical analysis of the state and the treatment lobby group’s representational practices implicates both in prompting the formation of an HIV positive subject who is rational, dignified and free.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, School of Human and Community Development, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, Wits, Johannesburg, 2050, Gauteng, South Africa

    Nkululeko Nkomo & Carol Long

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  1. Nkululeko Nkomo
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  2. Carol Long
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Correspondence to Nkululeko Nkomo.

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Nkomo, N., Long, C. Governmentality, subjectivity and AIDS. Subjectivity 7, 411–431 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1057/sub.2014.16

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