Theory and Event: Approaching the Study of PrEP

Abstract

The previous chapter laid out some of the key empirical settings out of which PrEP (and the various processes and procedures associated with its trialling) emerged, and into which it was introduced. In this chapter we begin to draw out the main literatures that inform our analysis of PrEP. As noted in Chapter 1, we do not see PrEP as an opportunity — or an opportune phenomenon — for applying the various concepts we introduce. Rather, our engagement with the empirical complexities of PrEP has fundamentally shaped our thinking on how to address matters ranging from the globalizing expectations about biomedical innovation through to the localizing ethical enactments of a virus. In particular, the multifariousness and complexity of the PrEP ‘case’ has obliged us to rethink our version of the event. In part, all this is because in such an engagement — or in the event of such an engagement — what emerges are not simply ‘new data’, but also ‘new researchers’. In making this point, we are also concerned with various methodological — indeed ontological — issues that arise in engagements with the empirical field.