“Memórias de infâncias posithivas : a cronicidade do HIV por transmissão vertical”

Abstract

This monograph investigates the experiences of people living with HIV/Aids since birth, drawing from childhood memories to shed light on the so-called posit(hiv)e childhoods and their historically invisible trajectories. It contextualizes the epidemic by differentiating the pre-ART period — marked by moral panic, stigma, and the association of Aids with the “gay plague” — from the post-ART period, when antiretroviral therapy transformed the disease into a chronic condition, even though stigma persists. With a qualitative approach grounded in the Social Sciences, particularly Anthropology, the research employs semi-structured “comprehensive” interviews with three adults living with HIV through vertical transmission — Lego, Lina, and Lírio — whose narratives reveal that HIV has shaped everyday life since childhood, generating coping strategies and negotiations that resonate into adulthood, so that chronicity does not present itself as a biographical rupture but rather as a constitutive part of the “always lived.” The interviews address diagnostic disclosure, school experiences, mourning, orphanhood, secrecy, and the ongoing impact of stigma, connecting these memories to audiovisual productions such as Um Lugar para Annie, A Cura, and Aquela Criança com AiD$ — the latter starring Lírio Nascimento, who proposes a counter-hegemonic narrative and reimagines futures for these children. The study demonstrates that understanding HIV requires going beyond the biomedical dimension, taking into account its social, affective, and symbolic implications. By recovering these “subterranean memories,” this research contributes to the Anthropology of Health and to the fight against “social viruses,” reaffirming the need for public policies that not only ensure access to treatment but also promote dignity, care, and the right to the full experience of posit(hiv)e childhoods, adolescences, and youths.