ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the social relations of HIV testing technology. The technology has been defined by the World Health Organisation as a serologic procedure for HIV antibody for an individual person, whether recommended by a health care provider or requested by the individual. Applying such an analysis to the technology of HIV testing, the chapter clarifies the complex issues relating to HIV testing; in particular to analyse the complex set of social processes including the power relations and ideological context in which the test is located. It provides a sociological analysis of the test, not couched only within the AIDS debates, but in the broader debates about medical technologies in general. In assessing the testing technology, several difficulties should be considered, which occur with the existing testing technology. The social context is constituted by a social process and has both a lead up and an aftermath, to be considered briefly in relation to HIV testing.
