Paper short abstract:

The space for organizations targeting LGBT persons with HIV and human rights interventions in Kenya has flourished in the recent past. This paper explores the contours of class/power relations in the delivery of HIV and human rights interventions targeting the MSM community.

Paper long abstract:

Kenya is one of the few countries in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) that have made substantive progress in providing HIV services to homosexual men as demonstrated by the number of homosexual-led and international organizations with activities targeting them. However, challenges with regards to human rights abound. Drawing on ethnography study conducted between 2010 and 2018 in Nairobi and Mombasa, I examine the historical continuities, disruptions, and fortification of social stratification leading to their inclusion and exclusion in HIV and human rights interventions. Specifically, I take a critical view into the emergence of homosexuality led -organizations and celebrity activism that aim to rescue the MSM community from social exclusions and explore how the delivery of HIV prevention and care and of human rights interventions are navigated. I argue that while, on one hand, the global actors have stepped up local efforts in HIV and other human interventions resulting in positive affects and 'visibility' of MSM, on the other hand, these organizations create power inequalities in the homosexual spaces, which jeopardize the 'rescue' efforts. The paper concludes by recognizing the effects of entanglement of HIV interventions, human rights activism and imbricated class stratification histories resulting in social exclusions within interventions targeting men who have sex with men.