Morality, Hope and Grief: Anthropologies of AIDS in Africa

364 Pages·2010·1.66 MB·English

by  Hansjörg Dilger (ed.)

Morality, Hope and Grief
Series: Epistemologies of Healing
General Editors: David Parkin and Elisabeth Hsu: both are at
ISCA, Oxford
This series in medical anthropology will publish monographs and
collected essays on indigenous (so-called traditional) medical
knowledge and practice, alternative and complementary medicine,
and ethnobiological studies that relate to health and illness. The
emphasis of the series is on the way indigenous epistemologies
inform healing, against a background of comparison with other
practices, and in recognition of the fl uidity between them.
Volume 1
Conjuring Hope: Magic and Healing in Contemporary Russia
Galina Lindquist
Volume 2
Precious Pills: Medicine and Social Change among Tibetan Refugees in India
Audrey Prost
Volume 3
Working with Spirit: Experiencing Izangoma Healing in Contemporary South
Africa
Jo Thobeka Wreford
Volume 4
Dances with Spiders: Crisis, Celebrity and Celebration in Southern Italy
Karen Lüdtke
Volume 5
‘The Land Is Dying’: Contingency, Creativity and Confl ict in Western Kenya
P. Wenzel Geissler and Ruth J. Prince
Volume 6
Plants, Health and Healing: On the Interface of Ethnobotany and Medical
Anthropology
Edited by Elisabeth Hsu and Stephen Harris
Volume 7
Morality, Hope and Grief: Anthropologies of AIDS in Africa
Edited by Hansjörg Dilger and Ute Luig
Volume 8
Folk Healing and Health Care Practices in Britain and Ireland: Stethoscopes,
Wands or Crystals
Edited by Ronnie Moore and Stuart McClean
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Morality, Hope
and Grief
Anthropologies of AIDS
in Africa
Edited by Hansjörg Dilger and Ute Luig
Berghahn Books
New York • Oxford
First published in 2010 by
Berghahn Books
www.berghahnbooks.com
©2010 Hansjörg Dilger and Ute Luig
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages
for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book
may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information
storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented,
without written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Morality, hope and grief : anthropologies of aids in Africa / edited by
Hansjørg Dilger and Ute Luig.
p. cm. -- (Epistemologies of healing)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-84545-663-4 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. AIDS (Disease)--Social aspects--Africa. 2. Medical anthropology--
Africa. I. Dilger, Hansjörg. II. Luig, Ute.
RA643.86.A35M675 2010
362.196’97920096--dc22
2010006676
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Printed in the United States on acid-free paper.
ISBN: 978-1-84545-663-4 Hardback
D
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction. Morality, Hope and Grief: Towards
an Ethnographic Perspective in HIV/AIDS Research 1
Hansjörg Dilger
I. Giving Hope?
Networks of Healing, Treatment and Care
1. Beyond Bare Life: AIDS, (Bio)Politics, and
the Neoliberal Order 21
Jean Comaroff
2. Spiritual Insecurity and AIDS in South Africa 43
Adam Ashforth
3. New Hopes and New Dilemmas: Disclosure and
Recognition in the Time of Antiretroviral Treatment 61
Hanne O. Mogensen
4. Health Workers Entangled: Confi dentiality
and Certifi cation 80
Susan R. Whyte, Michael A. Whyte,
David Kyaddondo
5. ‘My Relatives Are Running Away from Me!’ Kinship
and Care in the Wake of Structural Adjustment,
Privatisation and HIV/AIDS in Tanzania 102
Hansjörg Dilger
v
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Contents
II. Moralities at Stake
6. The Social History of an Epidemic: HIV/AIDS in
Gwembe Valley, Zambia, 1982–2004 127
Elizabeth Colson
7. Living beyond AIDS in Maasailand: Discourses of
Contagion and Cultural Identity 148
Aud Talle
8. Politics of Blame: Clashing Moralities and the AIDS
Epidemic in Nso’ (North-West Province, Cameroon) 173
Ivo Quaranta
9. Gossip, Rumour and Scandal: The Circulation of
AIDS Narratives in a Climate of Silence and Secrecy 192
Graeme Reid
III. Experiences of Grief, Death and Pain
10. ‘We Are Tired of Mourning!’ The Economy of Death
and Bereavement in a Time of AIDS 219
Liv Haram
11. Purity Is Danger: Ambiguities of Touch around
Sickness and Death in Western Kenya 240
P. Wenzel Geissler and Ruth J. Prince
12. Diseased and Dangerous: Images of
Widows’ Bodies in the Context of
the HIV Epidemic in Northern Zambia 270
Johanna A. Offe
13. Orphans’ Ties – Belonging and Relatedness in
Child-Headed Households in Malawi 292
Angelika Wolf
14. The Widow in Blue: Blood and the Morality of
Remembering in Botswana’s Time of AIDS 312
Frederick Klaits
Notes on Contributors 332
Index 337
vi
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Illustrations
Figure 1.1: Protesters wear masks in Pretoria against drug
fi rms. Source: Reuters, 18 April 2001. 35
Figure 5.1: Illustration in a booklet, instructions for ‘good’
and ‘safe’ care for people with HIV/AIDS. Source: Femina
HIP Multimedia Initiative, Tanzania. 107
Figure 9.1: The SA Institute for Medical Research is
investigating the possibility that AIDS is transmitted by
insects or other animals. . . . How did you get AIDS?
A poof-adder bit me. . . . Hey, what do you want to test
here with that arse-o-meter! Source: Rapport,
25 August 1985. 196
vii

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Acknowledgements
This book assembles a collection of papers that were fi rst presented
at a symposium on AIDS and the Moral Order at Wulkow Castle
near Berlin. On the occasion of this symposium, anthropologists
and other social scientists discussed the social, moral and political-
economic confi gurations that have shaped the course of the HIV/
AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa and individual and collective
experiences and actions in relation to the disease. Subsequent to the
symposium, the papers were signifi cantly revised in order to create a
thematically coherent volume.
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the contributors
to this book who have taken up the challenge to revise their confer-
ence presentations based on an internal and external review proc-
ess. We also thank the following panel discussants and chairs who
made invaluable comments on the presentations at the symposium
and whose comments formed a rich basis for broadening our own
and our contributors’ perspectives on HIV/AIDS: Paula Treichler,
Peter Geschiere, Jamie Monson, Christine Obbo, Benedicte Ings-
tad, Stacy L. Pigg and Suzette Heald. Finally, we want to thank two
anonymous reviewers for constructive comments on the fi nal ver-
sions of the chapters.
We thank Duke University Press and Edinburgh University Press
for granting permission to reprint shortened and slightly revised
versions of the following texts: Jean Comaroff, ‘Beyond Bare Life:
AIDS, (Bio)Politics, and the Neoliberal Order’ (fi rst published in
Public Culture 19(1) 2007: 197–219); Frederick Klaits, ‘The Widow
in Blue: Blood and the Morality of Remembering in Botswana’s Time
of Aids’ (fi rst published in Africa 75(1) 2005: 46–62). The article by
Elizabeth Colson, ‘The Social History of an Epidemic: HIV/AIDS in
Gwembe Valley, 1980–2004’, was fi rst published in Philippe Denis
and Charles Becker (eds), The HIV/AIDS Epidemic in Sub-Saharan
ix