Community-driven data initiatives for preventing HIV in Indonesia

This project aims to investigate the processes and practices of data collection and use in efforts to prevent and treat HIV in Indonesia among vulnerable populations, with a focus on 'community-driven data initiatives'. Drawing on the interdisciplinary expertise of anthropologists, data scientists and epidemiologists/public health experts in Indonesia and Australia, this project hopes to inform emergent paradigms of governing HIV through data.

The outcome is anticipated to be enhanced capacity to understand the social and cultural impacts of data-driven forms of health governance. Benefits include new forms of data visualisation, and more collaborative ethical protocols for collecting and using health data collected in the course of HIV prevention and treatment activities.

The larger project of which this collaboration forms part will be based on two case studies that investigate data collection as it relates to two common categories: “men who have sex with men” (MSM) and “housewives” (ibu rumah tangga). Tracing how “MSM” and “housewives” are quantified and visualized through data collection – from the community to the epidemiological level – provides the opportunity to understand the visibilities and invisibilities that data entails.

The team will work with Indonesian counterparts to look at data in two ways:

1. processes of data collection and analysis. They will work with epidemiologists and other program workers at a range of sites, including civil society organisations, regional departments of HIV, national department of health.
2. the effects of data as it is used in politics and policy. They will investigate the role of data in shaping responses to HIV, including data visualisation.

The MDAP collaboration of which this project is part, only focuses on studying and improving community-driven data initiatives developed by/for MSM communities. The project builds on ongoing collaborations with these communities by CI Hegarty, Davies and Praptoraharjo.