Abstract
Access to certain treatments related to sexuality and reproduction, such as seeking for abortion or antirretroviral (ARV) treatment for HIV, through certain venues (such as hospitals and pharmacies) does not flow easily through the Cairo’s urban grid. Hospitals, laboratories and pharmacies become infrastructural intermediaries that “authorize” distribution of prescriptions, circulation of medication, and provision of healthcare. However, urban health infrastructures become disciplinary forces over free and autonomous embodiments of sexuality and reproduction, inhabited by healthcare providers that replicate moral panics and heteronormative systems of values around the body.
I propose to talk about an urban epidemiological approach of Cairo, where the location, construction and organization of those buildings, streets and centers impact vulnerability not only to HIV infection, treatment and mortality, but also to induced abortion, maternal mortality and abortion care, as well as to safe hormone treatment, and safe gender reassignment surgery. When we move to understanding the urban epidemiology of healthcare infrastructure, we can consider how the private sector and informal circulations of medication have been taking over in the last couple of years on the supply of medication and healthcare that public hospitals and its pharmacies won’t provide. Similarly, it makes more evident the class, gender and racial dimensions outside a public service that patients can allegedly hold accountable.
Following Abourahme’s (2015) ethnography of concrete, and Hamdy’s (2012) ethnography of biotechnologies, I map different healthcare centers and pharmacies in multiple neighborhoods in Cairo that have become more securitized post-2011. I base my analysis on field work I’ve conducted from 2016 to 2018 through different durations. I compliment it with participant observation of hospitals, pharmacies and other spaces in the city where medical services and pills circulate. Finally, I compare and contrast these sources with archival analysis of the official reports by the National AIDS Committee Officer since 2011, UNFPA Egypt figures, and chronicles or reports from media outlets and other researchers’ ethnographies.
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