Between subjectivity and practice - understanding male-to-male sexuality in West Bengal
Lead Research Organisation:
University College London
Department Name: Thomas Coram Research Unit
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Paul Boyce (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Aggleton, Peter; Boyce, Paul; Moore, Henrietta L.; Parker, Richard
(2012)
Understanding Global Sexualities: New Frontiers
Boyce P
(2008)
Truths and (Mis)representations: Adrienne Rich, Michel Foucault and Sexual Subjectivities in India
in Sexualities
Boyce P
(2011)
Rights and representations: querying the male-to-male sexual subject in India.
in Culture, health & sexuality
| Description | The research had a significant impact in the communities worked with, offering a space in which participants could articulate views on sexuality and sexual risk that would not be 'captured' within prevailing HIV prevention paradigms. The PI worked closely with local HIV prevention networks in West Bengal in order to explore the limitations of existing, national HIV prevention practices. This included creative methods such as participatory photography. In these terms the research became a device for thinking through and developing the work of local community organisations in West Bengal, having a very direct impact in its immediate ethnographic location. The PI conducted further research for the Indian National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) in order to develop the national five year plan for HIV prevention with men who have sex with men (from 2012 onwards). The present research project - 'Between subjectivity and practice' - directly influenced national level HIV prevention policy in stressing the need to focus on male-to-male sexual subjects as other than defined by distinct same-sex sexual subjectivities and practices. This is reflected in three national level policy documents published by NACO in 2012 (co-authored by the PI). Similar viewpoints have been taken forward in the PI's work for other international agencies, such as UNDP. The research contributed to the global research base principally through ethnographically grounded epistemological development regarding understanding of sexualities as other than lived through distinct sexual subject positions. The research was located in a strong commitment to the exploration of lived socio-sexual life experiences, and hence contributed to new work in the anthropological study of intimacy - for instance through dialogue with a relevant research group at the University of Cambridge. Publications from the research have augmented anthropological and other social scientific work on sexuality, subjectivity and social change. Prevailing social scientific paradigms have tended to equate socio-economic growth and modernisation with new cultures of sexual individualism and life choices. The present research queried this perspective through exploration of the experiences of men who have sex with men and people and transgender in West Bengal who refute or do not recognise distinct same-sex sexual subject positions. As such the research has raised new questions regarding the relationship between sexual-selfhood, culture and economy, particularly in India, but also in respect of socio-economic change internationally. The impact of these perspectives has been taken forward through direct policy engagement - beyond the immediate context of the present ethnographic study per se, but with a direct correlation. This has been especially so via the development of new HIV prevention initiatives that take better account of ways in which the domain term sexuality, per se, may not be a salient organising term for addressing sexual risk in India. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2008 |
| Sector | Education,Healthcare |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Policy & public services |
| Description | Policy and Programme Impact - HIV prevention in India |
| Geographic Reach | Asia |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| Impact | Impact within academic communities and beyond was a central premise of this project. Focusing on impact beyond the academy, a key perspective developed within the project was that the study of sexualities requires epistemological approaches attentive to experiences that may not cohere into categorical sexual subjectivities or practices. This was in part a perspective aimed at opening new questions about ethnographic research on the sexual. Further, the research sought to counter a perceived excessive reliance on categorising seeming extant sexual subjects and acts in public health oriented HIV research internationally. The work sought to prevail against that the extant use of categories such as 'MSM' (men who have sex with men) in HIV prevention research and practice, developing an argument for the detrimental consequences for health promotion based on such discourses. Ethnographic work in West Bengal was employed as a case-study for the exploration and development of this proposition. As a direct outcome of my work I was asked to co-lead on a national level HIV prevention study for of male-to-male sexualities and HIV prevention for the Indian government's National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) during the award period, co-developing three policy and practice documents. This work was funded by the Department for International Development. In this work I developed a specific about argument the epidemiological category 'Hard-to-Reach MSM' (men's who have sex with men who were hard to involve in HIV prevention). I proposed that the seeming extant life-conditions of this category - being 'MSM' and being 'hard to reach' - were an effect of policy and HIV prevention paradigms that constructed such subjects as hard to reach. This, I proposed, reflected wider problems with the employment of limited empirical identity labels in HIV/public health work. As effect of such problems misconstrue epidemiological categories with extant social actors, for reasons that are more to do with policy and programme constraints than with actual life-worlds of the peoples targeted by HIV prevention interventions. Overall I advanced a new perspective on the human subjects of HIV prevention research and interventions toward a view of social actor who might be best conceived of as between sexual subject categories and sexual risk practices. This opened a new perspective on health promotion work, which might be less weeded to reified versions of 'types' of socio-sex actor. In particular I argued for a new attention to the conceptualisation of male-to-male sexual subjects - and this argument comprised a central component of one of the project reports produced for NACO. It was also presented at a national level HIV prevention meeting for the development of NACO's five-year plan for HIV prevention in 2012 and was published as one of three peer reviewed policy and programme reports. Furthermore, the PI have continued to consult on male-to-male sexualities and health internationally, for agencies such as UNDP and the HIV AIDS Alliance, employing the perspectives developed during the research to inform policy and practice. |
| URL | http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/10409/ |
| Title | Collaborative Visual Methods |
| Description | Visual ethnographic methods became an important research tool within the project, open a new perspective on life-worlds beyond interview-based narrative elicitation. This was important to counter a reliance on linguistic categories in HIV prevention research. Methods developed during the award have evolved to become central my research epistemology and feature strongly in future project plans. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2013 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | The visual research method has been taken forward in policy-orienetd work in Nepal, exploring everyday experiences of rights, discrimination and livelihood among sexual and gender minority peoples. This work was funded by the Department for International Development and was a component of the Institute of Development Studies programme on Sexuality, Poverty and Law. |
| URL | http://www.creative-nepal.com |
| Description | Collaboration with the National AIDS Control Organization, India |
| Organisation | Indian Ministry of Health |
| Department | NACO (Indian National AIDS program) and NTRP (Indian national TB program) |
| Country | India |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | This partnership enable my ESRC funded research to extent into important areas of national policy and programme impact. In collaboration with 'The Futures Group' and 'C-Sharp' (India-based consultancies) I was able to undertake new research for the Indian national 5 year plan for HIV prevention (see impact report for details). This worked extended regional collaboration in West Bengal, principally with MANAS, a state network for male-to-male HIV privation and sexual rights |
| Collaborator Contribution | All partners worked collaboratively. The India based partners brought high-level research skills, and helped to bring about a truly interdisciplinary collaboration. Collaboration with regional partners in West Bengal built on prior doctoral work in the region and added considerable contextual depth to the work. |
| Impact | Three 'MSM situation papers' - Technical Brief 3, DFID AIDS Technical Assistance Support Team (of Futures Group International Pvt. Ltd., India) for the Indian National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO): 6. 'Hard-to-Reach Men who have Sex with Men in India: Recommendations for HIV prevention', 2011, pp. 1-21 - lead-author with Venketesan Chakrapani, and D. Dhanikachalam 7. 'Women Partners of Men who have Sex with Men in India,' 2011, pp. 1-23 - co-authored with Venketesan Chakrapani, and D. Dhanikachalam (major contribution) 8. 'Sexual violence against men who have sex with men in India: Intersections with HIV,' 2011, pp. 1-23 - co-authored with Venketesan Chakrapani, and D. Dhanikachalam (major contribution) This was an interdisciplinary publication, bringing about work across anthropology, demography and epidemiology |
| Start Year | 2011 |
| Description | National Level Meeting - India |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Research was present at a national level consulate meeting in Delhi for the Indian National AIDS Control Organization's five year plan. Presentation drew on both ESRC funded ethnographic work in West Bengal and national level study of HIV prevention and sexual risk among men who have sex with men in India. These projects were strongly connected and the results and findings were analysed and presented in synergy. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |