From Madison to Zuccotti Park: Confronting Class and Reclaiming the American Dream ClassCrits V Workshop: November 16-17, 2012 University of Wisconsin

Aziza Ahmed (Northeastern University School of Law) “Human Rights, Epidemiology, and the Co-production of Identity/Risk Narratives in HIV Legal Advocacy” Identity has become the primary prism by which to understand and organize in response to the HIV epidemic. In this article I examine how identity is co-produced by HIV epidemiology and through international human rights activism. Beginning with the engagement of feminist activists identity became central to international human rights organizing around gender, sex, and sexuality. HIV complicated this engagement by reintroducing biological and epidemiological narratives of risk and vulnerability. Further, HIV brought sex workers and gay men to international legal advocacy scene as new actors with complex relationships to feminist organizing. Through the continued engagement of identity groups with rights-claiming and epidemiology ideas of vulnerability categories reproduce themselves. I call this the “identity / risk narrative”: the common-sense knowledge about an identity group’s HIV risk. The creation of identity/risk narratives has particular consequences for HIV: it masks our understanding of HIV transmission, excludes individuals who do not fit neatly into identity demarcated territory, and deradicalizes HIV activism. At the end of this article I offer ways to minimize the downsides of identity-based activism through shifting the mode of legal advocacy around HIV. By remaining vigilant about destabilizing identity, taking a consequentialist approach, and remaining focused on the background rules advocacy can remain agile and responsive to the impact of HIV.