Paper short abstract:

This contribution aims at analyzing the activist role played by doctors specialized in AIDS care and occupying key positions in AIDS institutions by looking at how they use their expert position to promote activist orientations of the AIDS care policy making process in Benin.

Paper long abstract:

Doctors specialized in AIDS care play a central role in AIDS care policy making in Benin. Not only are they mobilized as experts in therapeutic protocol and policy building but they also occupy most of the key positions in AIDS institutions in the country.

Going further than previous works on the central role of bio-medical oligarchies in AIDS policy-making in Africa, this contribution would like to analyze the activist stand that they defend from within institutions they work for.

Involved in a transnational professional network diffusing a particular view of the AIDS epidemic at the national level, they advocate for better care through access to technologies available in Western countries. Their "neutral" position as recognized experts provides them with a unique opportunity to push for solutions that are technical in appearance and activist by nature. They thus contribute to maintaining the "exceptionalist" building of the AIDS field and its stand within the health sector in Benin. This paper therefore aims at analyzing the diffusion mechanisms of this construction of AIDS care among AIDS specialists in Benin and how these AIDS experts develop this "institutional activism".