FORUM 2016

Bridget O'Laughlin and Beniamin Knutsson

Development and Change, 2016, vol. 47, issue 4, 615-639

Abstract: type="main">

While access to antiretroviral therapy has improved worldwide, many people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) still suffer from economic hardship. Socio-economic impact mitigation is therefore becoming an increasingly important component of the global HIV/AIDS response. The content of such strategies, however, is dependent on the political rationalities underpinning them. Drawing on fieldwork in Rwanda, this article explores programmatic efforts by the Rwandan government and its international partners to govern the economic life of PLHIV. These interventions are conceptualized as a form of biopolitics and the article analyses the neoliberal modalities of government through which it operates. At the centre of the strategy is a pretension to transform PLHIV from economically unproductive life, sustained by medical means, into a resilient and enterprising population willing to accept responsibility for their own livelihoods. However, according to the strategy, the only way for PLHIV to lead responsible economic lives is by daring to become entrepreneurial and enrolling in microcredit schemes. Thus the dubious message conveyed is that responsible conduct is tantamount to exposing oneself to risk. The article also discusses the complex coexistence of this neoliberal biopolitics and the Rwandan government's known efforts to exercise sovereign control.

Date: 2016
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