Alberto Carneiro Presents “CONTA-ME!”: The First Survey About HIV Vulnerability Among MSM Brazilian Newcomers in Toronto

• In-person event

Contame! Cuéntame is the first study about HIV vulnerability among men who have sex with other men (MSM) in Toronto. An online survey was followed by 50 qualitative in-depth interviews, (25 with Spanish speakers and 25 with Portuguese-speaking MSM). The main findings were that their migration experiences are traversed by economic rationales, security concerns, and the embodied experiences of race, gender, culture, and sexuality. Most express narratives of empowered opportunity in distancing themselves from restrictive sexual regimes of their place of origin, but at the same time, many migrants trade a new sense of social acceptance as MSM for marginalized statuses defined by diminished social and economic capital. The social participatory rights of citizenship seem to be particularly affected by sexuality and social class. The need and desire to establish social and sexual connections in a new ethos often characterized by economic vulnerability shape experiences of social capital and citizenship rights.

Alberto Carneiro is a Brazil-Canadian PhD student studying Anthropology at Carleton University’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology. He has a B.A. and M.A. in Psychology, a Ph.D in Public Health from Brazil, and a M.A. in Cultural Analysis and Social Theory (Wilfrid Laurier in Canada). In Brazil he built his academic career as a Social Psychologist Professor in Rio de Janeiro at Laureate International University. He was also invited to teach Social Psychology applied to Indigenous populations in Are, a Brazilian state in the Amazon region, where he stayed for almost 2 years teaching at Faculdade da Amazônia Ocidental university. He also participated in the LGBTQi activism focused on the empowerment of Indigenous non-heterosexual youth. In Rio de Janeiro he coordinated a project at Laureate University in Social Psychology where he was responsible to train students who were in the last undergrad year to work with LGBTi vulnerable populations affected by and/or living with HIV. For this project he received a Human Rights Award in the Academic Research category in 2013.

Once in Canada, Alberto was a visiting Scholar at the Psychology department of University of Calgary where he conducted a qualitative research workshop for M.A. students to conduct interview with vulnerable populations. He also participated in the first survey about HIV vulnerability among Latino MSM in Toronto, conducted by Dr. Barry Adam and funded by the Ontario Health Treatment Network. Apart from academia, Alberto coordinated a project focused on LGBTQi people of colour refugees in the city of Calgary at the NGO Outreach. In Toronto he was a volunteer at the Program for HIV primary prevention for Portuguese speakers at the Aids Committee of Toronto and was later hired as a peer assistant for various projects at that same organization.

This talk is part of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology Brown Bag Talk in the Time of the Pandemic series.