Long Life of People Living with HIV/AIDS and the Practice of Medical Power

Abstract

As the AIDS virus was brought into the public consciousness toward the end of the twentieth century, the initial response around the world including Thailand contributed to AIDS becoming one of the most feared and controversial diseases in modern medical history. The Thai government initial response was to launch a campaign “AIDS is death” and to portray people living with the disease in a negative light. This led to the stigmatization and discrimination of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV). This chapter describes the history and responses to HIV/AIDS from a sociocultural perspective by showing how PLHIV in Thailand had a way to interpret the meaning of their problem and how they took power into their own hands through the formation of self-help groups and through redefining the way they lived with the disease. The chapter analyzes how PLHIV, through the platform of self-help groups, have organized themselves using antiretroviral drugs as an organizing tool and how these actions not only transformed the lives of PLHIV but changed the power relations within Thai society. An attempt is made to understand how the practice of medical power, realized through antiretroviral drugs, controlled and managed PLHIV and how they, through negotiation, assumed hegemonic medical control.