Performative Pedagogy: Poststructural Theory as a Tool to Engage in Identity Work Within a Youth-Led HIV Prevention Program

This chapter discusses the use of poststructural theory as a way to inform ways of working with marginalized young people from population groups perceived to be at higher risk of contracting HIV. Many HIV prevention programs focus on changing the behaviors that are deemed to put individuals at risk; however, an individualized focus can inadvertently lead to stigmatization and exclusion of the very people that the program seeks to serve and empower. Using a logic of change informed by a poststructuralist understanding of identity opens the space to create a different kind of program, one in which the emphasis is on collective identity work, and a repositioning from victim to leader. A poststructural focus on positioning and subjectivity emphasizes the socially constructed nature of identity and highlights the importance of social factors, rather than individual behavior, in the ways identities are formed and lived.