Governing masses: routine HIV testing as a counteroffensive in the war against HIV-AIDS

The aim of this article is to critically discuss routine HIV testing policy in the United States by locating its origins within health promotion efforts to govern masses and the neoliberal construction of the individual as free, autonomous, responsible, and empowered. Basing our approach on the work of the late French philosopher Michel Foucault, we describe routine HIV testing as a bio-political intervention that redefines the norms and social practices pertaining to HIV testing with the goal of regulating the population's health. From a neoliberalist perspective, routine HIV testing is also introduced as a practice of self-care that should be undertaken by any rational person who performs good health practices around HIV/AIDS. The objective of this article is to situate routine HIV testing policy in relation to nursing practice and, most important, to demonstrate how this policy should not be considered in isolation from the political context in which it was created.