When HIV-Positive Children Grow Up

Abstract

Young people with perinatally acquired HIV are routinely problematized in the research literature as inadequately equipped to manage transition to adolescent sexuality and adult clinical care without comprehensive interventions, partly because of challenges associated with adolescence itself, and partly because of neurocognitive and psychosocial dysfunctions commonly attributed to these children. However, little is actually known about this population, given their recent emergence in the HIV epidemic. Using critical discourse analysis, we argue that several problematic assumptions operate in this literature, hampering the objective of understanding these young people. Our analysis can contribute to a reframing of future research on HIV-positive adolescents, by encouraging greater attunement to the experiences of the adolescents themselves and to the discursive meanings that underpin research agendas, so that different and more productive questions can be asked and answered.