Living with HIV and ARVs

A new book being launched this week captures the reality of living long-term with HIV and the often overlooked daily struggles of those receiving treatment.

 ‘Living with HIV and ARVs: Three Letter Lives’ by Professor Corinne Squire is based on personal accounts of what it is like to live with HIV in both the UK and South Africa during an era of significant advances in antiretroviral (ART) treatment and public awareness.

It is one of the few publications to address the social contexts of being treated for HIV and it has strong implications for health education and policy.

The book draws on long term studies conducted by Squire, who for the past twenty years has been documenting the stories of HIV positive people in the UK and in South Africa. It presents stories ofdealing with the side effects of treatment, the long-term difficulties of HIV infection, and in the UK and especially South Africa, the problems of living with HIV and ART in situations of limited other resources.

Squire highlights how for those who are HIV positive or HIV-affected, many medical, social and personal problems remain.  She argues that current political processes and popular approaches to HIV which focus on the ‘medicalisation’, ‘normalisation’ and ‘marketisation’ of the pandemic often fail or are resisted by people living with HIV.

Reviews state the book “is a must read for all those concerned with HIV issues,” and that it offers “one of the most nuanced accounts so far available of lives dependent on regular supplies of drugs.”

Catherine Campbell, Professor of Social Psychology at the London School of Economics comments: “Squire’s path-breaking study of the possibilities and difficulties facing people on ART in Europe and Africa consolidates her status as an international leader in academic and policy debates. It poses a stark challenge to the growing swell of glib claims that the problem of HIV/AIDS has been ‘solved’ by the advent of drug treatments.”

‘Living with HIV and ARVs: Three Letter Lives’, published by Palgrave Macmillan, is being launched at a special event at the Institute of Education on Friday 28 February. For further details click here.

Corinne Squire is Professor of Social Sciences and Co-Director, Centre for Narrative Research, University of East London, UK. Her research interests are in HIV and citizenship, subjectivities and culture, and narrative research. Her publications include HIV in South Africa: HIV technologies in international perspective (with Davis) and Doing Narrative Research (with Andrews and Tamboukou).