A bad migrant: An autoethnographic case study of racism in Australian HIV care

Australia is world renowned when it comes to its successful response to HIV prevention, but their HIV epidemiological trend has shifted towards the increase of new HIV diagnoses among migrants. This paper reveals a neglected determinant of migrants' health within Australian HIV care, and that is: racism. To provoke a debate on the saliency of racism, I used autoethnographic case study to analyse my encounter with racism in Australian HIV care. I argue migrants who live with HIV can be racially classified by health care professionals into 'good' or 'bad migrants' based on biomedical measures, neoliberal values and dehumanising health care provision. A migrant patient becomes a bad migrant if the person is perceived to be incapable of taking personal responsibility over their treatment, is a burden to the health system and deserving of poor HIV care. Decolonising HIV care is a necessity to stop the subtle yet insidious social reproduction of racism.