MSM' as a 'doing thing
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3699809 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Robert Lorway (0000-0001-6923-8832, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Publication date | 2019-12-16 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Medicine Anthropology Theory (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2405-691X • E-ISSN: 2405-691X |
| Publisher | Edinburgh University Library (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.17157/mat.6.4.698 |
| OpenAlex | W3177327799 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 24 |
Drawing upon long-term ethnographic research in Namibia, I examine the label 'MSM' through a materialist interpretation of affect, viewing 'MSM' as a 'doing thing' that unsettles the boundaries between subjects and objects. From this analytic perspective, I reconsider the 'MSM' label as an inadequate signifier that overlooks, conceals, or erases social complexity. Instead, this perspective reveals what happens when the MSM label travels, thereby better accounting for the socialities it is instrumental in making up. Its very design and appearance - which portray bodies and behaviours in universalistic ways - allow this 'doing thing' to gain entry to diverse spaces where it comes to exist alongside some contentious postcolonial political formations, such as those surrounding LGBT rights. I argue that although the label is designed to be insulated from politics, as a 'neutral' behavioural category, when 'MSM' travels it is still highly relational, continually entangling itself in contexts, stirring up postcolonial anxieties, and reinforcing global inequalities, while also setting the stage for global health worlds coming into being
Aesthetics · Art · Epistemology · Ethnography · Inequality · Linguistics · Materialism · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Social science · Social worlds · Sociology · Visual arts · Anthropology · Children's Rights and Participation · Communication · Gender Studies · Global Security and Public Health · Law · Philosophy · Sex work and related issues
Scrambling for Africa
HIV Prevalence, Risks for HIV Infection, and Human Rights among Men Who Have Sex with Men (MSM) in Malawi, Namibia, and Botswana
Hungochani
Remembering Foucault
Beyond ‘MSM’
HIV vulnerability and the erasure of sexual and gender diversity in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire
In the name of brevity
From MSM to heteroflexibilities
The limitations of ‘Black MSM’ as a category
We are ordinary men’
Dispelling “heterosexual African Aids” in Namibia
Variance Estimation, Design Effects, and Sample Size Calculations for Respondent-Driven Sampling
Pursuing social justice through public health
Institutional Ecology, `Translations' and Boundary Objects
The Trouble With “MSM” and “WSW”
Nation Building and the Battle for Consciousness
We Have Never Been Modern
Out in Africa
Government-by-exception
Doing Things
Social and public experiments and new figurations of science and politics in postcolonial Africa1
Respondent-Driven Sampling
A World of Standards but not a Standard World
But Do Not Identify as Gay
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |