NEOLIBERAL POLICIES, HIV-RELATED VULNERABILITY AND AIDS ACTIVISM IN M╔XICO
Abstract
This thesis interrogates how the institutional dynamics that have emerged in Mexico as a consequence of neoliberal state policies have shaped the vulnerability and violence to which people living with HIV (PLHIV) are exposed. Likewise, it interrogates how PLHIV have dealt with and transformed this context. Based on an analysis of in-depth interviews, as well as primary and secondary data, this thesis: 1) Argues that the Mexican state's neoliberal reforms to health care system over the last 20 years, along with a set of representations that imagine HIV as a `homosexual disease,' have underpinned the forms of displacement and vulnerability to which PLHIV have been exposed, 2) Analyzes the emergence and transformation of AIDS activism and its repertories of protest, and 3) Contends that the struggles carried out by AIDS activists have generated social and institutional outcomes that are beneficial to the sick and the needy in Mexican society.