Hopeful Futures, Inertial Histories and the Complex Present

Abstract

For two of my UK interviews, I travel to the outer reaches of South London, to a small block of flats where the borough council houses asylum-seekers. The flats are a long bus ride away from the train station and the central shopping area. Rebecca has offered to host myself and Susan, a friend of hers, for the afternoon. Both will do interviews. Before Susan arrives, Rebecca describes her ARV treatment, still only moderately successful — her CD4+ T cell count remains under 500, five years after she started — and her difficult citizenship status. Eleven years after arriving in the UK and seven years after her first asylum application, she is still awaiting a decision from the Home Office on whether she can stay in the UK. She talks briefly of her children in her country of origin and, upset, switches topic to her own current situation. The council provides her housing and a pre-paid £40-a-week card to pay for food, clothes, other personal necessities and transport. To welcome myself and her friend, she offers water, fruit juice, and a bowl of fresh fruit, all kept in a pristine refrigerator. In severely constrained economic circumstances, she makes a priority of good nutrition to support her still-precarious health. This happens at the direct expense of travel outside her area, for instance, to centralised HIV NGOs that provide trainings and legal advice.

Optimism and momentum has been building around the real possibility that an AIDS-free generation is imminent. Public enthusiasm is fuelled by news about the rapid scale-up of antiretroviral therapy, evidence that HIV treatment can prevent new infections, and expanded coverage of programmes to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Yet, the most recent estimates of HIV prevalence and incidence and of AIDS-related mortality released by UNAIDS … make it clear that AIDS is not over … while much progress has been made in treatment and prevention, the persistent and substantial global burden associated with HIV and AIDS compels us to do more — and do better — to achieve the AIDS-free generation the world is waiting for.

Sidibé et al. (2012)

Rebecca: You know, now back home … the people that grew up together, their friends, they don’t just ask ‘where is’, uh-uh!

Susan: Generations have been wiped out.

Rebecca: They have gone! They have gone. My brother told me, the people have died.

Susan: Generations have really been wiped out.

Rebecca: It’s only the older people remaining, with young people.

Susan: Yeah, the young people. As long as they are negative, because if they are positive, they are bound to die at some point.

Rebecca and Susan, UK (2011)