Thinking with HIV in pandemic times: A diffractive reading of COVID-19 and mpox

Discussions about the social impacts of COVID-19, and most recently, mpox (formerly monkeypox), have been informed by the legacy of the HIV epidemic. Yet despite awareness of the importance of avoiding exclusionary depictions of ‘at-risk’ populations, some public discourses have drawn on framings that imply certain groups are risky disease vectors who threaten the health of an imagined ‘general’ public. Drawing on Barad's concept of diffraction and Treichler's classic work, How to Have Theory in an Epidemic, we offer a diffractive reading of contemporary pandemic discourses through the lens of HIV. We suggest that thinking with HIV provides an important analytic device for exploring how the history and cultural imaginaries of HIV are threaded through contemporary pandemic discourses and serve to reinforce existing social inequalities. In particular, we highlight the ways in which contemporary discourses on COVID-19 and mpox function as dividing practices, arguing that they produce particular exclusions in relation to already marginalised populations, including queer communities, minority ethnic communities, homeless people and those in residential care. We conclude with reflections on the lessons of the HIV epidemic for forging more compassionate responses to contemporary disease outbreaks.