Resum
BACKGROUND: Since the mid-1990s, the development of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) improved the prognosis of HIV infection of affected people. "Adherence" to treatments became a central issue of medical-institutional approaches. In this context, civil society organizations have played a significant role in articulation with international cooperation agencies and agencies.
In this study, I seek to understand how members of a national network of young people living with HIV articulate their activism practices with the experience of being young and living with HIV. Thus, I propose to analyze the meanings expressed by some activists around these long-term treatments and I will present how the category of 'adherence' is discussed in different events and institutional activities in which medical infectologists also participated. METHODS: For this study I implemented an ethnographic approach through observation with participation in the activities of the network, complementing with interviews to activists and analysis of secondary sources. I carried out the field work between August 2015 and June 2016 within the institutional framework of the network, which was formed in 2011 and is considered a space for participation nad support organized exclusively by young people who ive with HIV in Argentina. RESULTS: In the testimonies of young people, other meanings of 'good adhesions' are highlighted. Young people show how a "good adherence" can include an adequate intake of medication with the development of a full youth life. Here, "good adherence" is not translated into the effectiveness of the treatment, but rather that the youth life is not affected by the treatment. A "good adherence" is translated in the recognition of the efficacy of the treatment, but accepting that the medication intake may be interrupted. However, the network is valued by young people as an emotional space that allows treatment to be resumed. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows how the medical category 'adherence' circulates within a network of young people with HIV. The notion of "adherence" is appropriate for young people and given new meanings in the different instances of participation. Medical knowledge is molded from the knowledge produced by young people in their lives, which expose other dimensions of treatments obstacles.