Replacement feeding and the HIV Diaspora: A case of ontological multiplicity and fluid technologies

Abstract

Breastmilk is a transmission source of HIV. Therefore, mothers living with HIV are able to avoid exposing their infants to HIV-contaminated breastmilk if they replacement feed them. This article draws on an ethnographic study of an acute National Health Service HIV specialist antenatal clinic in London and explores the ontological multiple HIVs that the practice of replacement feeding takes part in enacting within the fluid space of the HIV diaspora. The term articulates the circumstances of racialised people affected by HIV who are originally from countries where access to life sustaining medication, care and resources-that enable a decoupling of the illness from death-are not readily accessible, and who have (temporarily) relocated themselves to geographical places where these resources are on offer. Arguing that Black African and Caribbean migrant women's ability to benefit from the technologies and care that have turned HIV into a chronic illness in England is delimited by race and their diasporic positionality. In so doing, the article contributes to Sociology by showing how race is part of practice-ethnographic research and medical care even when it is seemingly absent.