ArticleSocial theory & health : STH2022
Ambivalence and the biopolitics of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) implementation.
Article in Social theory & health : STH, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed.
- Barriers: The discursive problematization and transformation of HIV-prevention service provision in England (2016-2020).Social theory & health : STH · 2025Article
- Styles of thought in healthcare governance: A situational analysis of English PrEP discourse 2016-2020.BioSocieties · 2025Article
- Perceptions and Acceptability of Doxycycline-Based STI Prophylaxis: Insights from Consumers and Healthcare Providers in Queensland.International journal of sexual health : official journal of the World Association for Sexual Health · 2025Article
- "Sex without fear": exploring the psychosocial impact of oral HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis on gay men in England.AIDS research and therapy · 2023Article
- Disjuncture between self-perceived and clinically assessed risk of HIV among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men in Ontario and British Columbia, Canada.BMC public health · 2023Article
- PrEP-related stigma and PrEP use among gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men in Ontario and British Columbia, Canada.AIDS research and therapy · 2022Article
- "What other choices might I have made?": Sexual Minority Men, the PrEP Cascade and the Shifting Subjective Dimensions of HIV Risk.Qualitative health research · 2022Article
- Prescribing as affective clinical practice: Transformations in sexual health consultations through HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis.Sociology of health & illness · 2022Article
- "Syndemic moral distress": sexual health provider practices in the context of co-occurring, socially produced sexual and mental health epidemics.BMC health services research · 2022Article
- Searching for diagnostic certainty, governing risk: Patients' ambivalent experiences of medical testing.Sociology of health & illness · 2022Article
- Barriers to Oral PrEP: A Qualitative Study of Female Sex Workers, PrEP Prescribers, Policymakers, and Community Advocates in Morocco.Journal of the International Association of Providers of AIDS CareArticle
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
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Abstract
Ambivalence, the vacillation between conflicting feelings and thoughts, is a key characteristic of scientific knowledge production and emergent biomedical technology. Drawing from sociological theory on ambivalence, we have examined three areas of debate surrounding the early implementation of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, for gay, bisexual, queer, and other men who have sex with men in Canada, including epistemology and praxis, clinical and epidemiological implications, and sexual politics. These debates are not focused on the science or efficacy of PrEP to prevent HIV, but rather represent contradictory feelings and opinions about the biopolitics of PrEP and health inequities. Emphasizing how scientists and health practitioners may feel conflicted about the biopolitics of novel biomedical technologies opens up opportunities to consider how a scientific field is or is not adequately advancing issues of equity. Scientists ignoring their ambivalence over the state of their research field may be deemed necessary to achieve a specific implementation goal, but this emotion management work can lead to alienation. We argue that recognizing the emotional dimensions of doing HIV research is not a distraction from "real" science, but can instead be a reflexive site to develop pertinent lines of inquiry better suited at addressing health inequities.
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