Introduction

This book starts with the question of what it means to ‘end AIDS’, to ‘eradicate it once and for all’. It starts from the realization that there seems to have been a profound shift in how the HIV epidemic is framed. However, what does ending AIDS entail? Who will be ending it and how? Where will the end come about, and when will it be ended? If ending something signifies both the final part of ‘a period of time, an activity, or a story’, then what does this signify in terms of the end of AIDS? Finally, since the HIV epidemic is, to a large degree, an epidemic driven by social inequality and health inequity, does the end of AIDS also signify the end of inequality? This chapter will provide the background and the rationale for writing a book about what the end of AIDS might signify. The chapter develops the theoretical as well as the methodological framework for the book as well as providing some of the historical contexts for the emergence of the narrative that we are nearing ‘the end of AIDS’.