Construction and deconstruction of the truth regime about expropriated bodies of seropositivity/sexwork/feminine subjectivity or “What people do to people”

Abstract

The public humiliation of “HIV-positive female sexworkers” in Greece in 2012 returned to the spotlight
following a decision by the European Court of Human Rights. As a result, the thirty-two women who had been
defamed were found innocent, thereby defining the (legal) outcome of the case. This paper presents the 2012
case study as a postmodern form of political-social management of a body that is (allegedly) diseased (HIVpositive) and engaged in sex (sexuality/sexwork). It is analysed and interpreted through the mechanisms of
surveillance and social/cultural control. Medicine was integrated into government policy. Also, how the smear
campaign spread across Greece and was substantiated by official state agencies under the guise of defending
public health, thereby structuring an (anti-human) regime of truth/discourse/knowledge/power. It is noted that
the accused women experienced what happened while they were placed in dangerous conditions for their health
and lives. At the same time, a collective action was formed, based on direct and practical solidarity, that, to the
extent possible, deconstructed the dominant regime of expropriated bodies, which joined the new “witch hunt”.
Based on the appeal of this collective action, the new issue raised in this contribution concerns how the theory of
human rights dialogues with the demand for its practical application in today’s context, and how a new reading
of history and the historical continuation of the new “witch hunt” include points of resistance capable of
deconstructing discourses and practices about dispossessed bodies. Aiming for a new reading of the human and
the history of expropriation, the sociology of the body has been chosen as the main theoretical tool, which,
through the analysis of (biomedical and biopolitical) discourse, is articulated with concepts from poststructuralist (sociological) theory and social anthropology. The material for the collection/selection/exposition
of factual data is based on documents retrieved from the Internet (2012–2025) and includes a representative part
of the printed Press, the most frequently viewed reports/articles of the electr