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Paper short abstract

Taking a historical perspective, the paper draws on three instances of testing in the context of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Greece. It explores socio-technical and political implications of testing, by focusing on distinct appropriations of tests, acknowledging the infrastructural dynamics.

Paper long abstract

Taking a historical perspective, this paper draws on three instances of uses of testing in the context of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Greece. It analyses public discourses surrounding the appropriations of tests, as well as the infrastructural dynamics associated with testing regimes. Given the growing research in STS and related fields on the complexities of (bio)medical testing, it explores socio-technical and political implications of testing in healthcare (Petersen & Pienaar, 2021). The first aim of the paper is to identify moments of ambiguity between testing and screening practices. The second is to reflect on contestations connected to public health objectives and testing realities. The third is to consider the visibility (and mobility) of tests as public technologies that enact different public health values.

By focusing on distinct appropriations of tests over a 25-year period, the paper analyses three episodes that illustrate contestations over interpretations of tests and testing. The first episode examines debates surrounding the use of early anti-HIV tests to understand and manage the HIV/AIDS outbreak in Greece (1985-1988), highlighting tensions between testing and screening logics. The second episode, in 2006, concerns a moment of public health triggered by the public disclosure of two transfusion-transmitted HIV infections, when the absence of nucleic acid test (NAT) in routine blood screening became the central issue of public controversy. Τhe third episode, in 2012, concerns the compulsory HIV testing of women who were violently detained in police custody following police raids in Athens (formally associated with illicit sex-work and trafficking).