INTE 398 Lecture 9: Ffar 291/Inte 398 Winter 2018 - Lesson 9 Notes
5 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Ffar 291/Inte 398 – Intro HIV Class
Lesson 9
9.1 Intro Video
-part of what makes HIV so hard to address is our complex relationship to taboos around
sexuality
-explore some of the concrete ways this discomfort impacts the transmission of HIV
-recognize that these taboos carry diff meanings cross-culturally
-sexuality = loaded concept within that framework
-how deal w international health risk when requires to deal w very openly
-what sexuality may rep for and to diff communities
9.2 AIDS and the Globalization of Sexuality Reading
-AIDS = both a product and a cause of globalization
-often claimed that AIDS is the first global epidemic, it was recognized as a real danger in the
late 80s
-HIV = striking in the way it links the least developed and the most developed regions of the
world
-first identified and named among gay men in coastal cities of the USA, and homosexual
transmission remains sig in number of rich countries and not insig in number of poor ones,
despite frequent gvt denial and obfuscation
-AIDS linked to globalization in a number of ways, including its transmission and the dev of
responses to the epidemic
-the dev of international responses to HIV = part of larger globalization of certain biomed and
socio-beh paradigms
-Mbeki = desire to find an "African" understanding of the epidemic
-HIV/AIDS reverses the dev in a whole set of interconnected ways - like the loss of skilled labor,
greater stress on social and health services, etc
-psychocultural impact: mass deaths and illness will trigger a set of irrational responses
involving anger, denial and scapegoating
Sex, money and HIV
-diff ppl will experience the resulting social changes in dramatically diff ways
-AIDS changed the nature of the international sex trade - fear of the HIV epidemic so ask for
younger prostitutes (presumably uninfected)
-properly used condoms = the single most imp tool in preventing the spread of HIV, and their
prohibition = directly responsible for 1000s of new infections every year
9.3 Knowledge Check
Structural factors were the initial focus of HIV prevention campaigns, since they were the
easiest to address globally
-FALSE - prevention efforts initially focused on ind behs, then expanded to consider
structural factors often beyond ind control
9.4 Global Perspectives on Sexuality Lecture
-HIV is linked to globalization in a number of ways, including its transmission and the dev of
responses to the epidemic, which have been a major test of the United Nations system, of
concepts of international solidarity and civil society, and of the whole complex set of
international agreements and regulations surrounding pharmaceutical patents and manufacture
-global mobilization around the demands of a biomedical emergency has inevitably meant the
further entrenchment of western concepts of disease, treatments, sexuality and the body
-while I believe that the western scientific view of AIDS as resulting from infection by a
retrovirus is correct, I also recognize that this particular understanding further undermines
other and diff ways of viewing med and the body (Altman)
-the west sets the terms for how we understand a prob - true for HIV/AIDS
-kind of providing resources and funding for HIV, site thru where lots of research happens,
where lots of money and sci coming from
-in many ways, importing NA concepts of disease and treatment and how prioritize certain
issues, in terms of how we frame HIV/AIDS as a prob
-true in understanding of sexuality
HIV Denialism
-after he assumed the presidency, he appears to have articulated more clearly his
understanding that poverty is a sig factor in the prevalence of AIDS and other health probs
-some speculate that the suspicion engendered by a life in exile and by the colonial domination
and control of Africa led Mbeki to react vs a portrayal of AIDS as another Western
characterization of Africans as promiscuous and Africa as a continent of disease and
hopelessness:
-convinced that we are but natural-born promiscuous carriers of germs, unique in the
world, they proclaim that our continent is doomed to an inevitable mortal end bc of our
unconquerable devotion to the sin of lust
-refusal to acknowledge that HIV had direct causal connection to AIDS
-one of the reasons why prevalence rates as high as they are
-sexual morals and standards are somehow to blame in Africa
-he is pushing back reading of Africans as immoral and somehow doomed
-shifting the pov
Shifting Focus/Establishing Diff (Altman)
-its not far fetched to suggest that the extraordinary hostility towards homosexuals expressed
by the leaders of a number of African leaders, in countries such as Zimbabwe, Kenya and
Namibia, is a clear displacement of the fears and frustrations aroused by HIV and the particular
resentments of leaders of countries whose economies and very survival is imperilled by an
epidemic which is spread sexually
-ironically, the most homophobic comments tend to come from those countries where sexual
transmission is overwhelmingly heterosexual
-can be read as hostility towards western values or influences within various parts of Africa
-perhaps misplaced hostility
-understanding that suspicion of western practices could spill into suspicion of various forms of
sexual expression that are understood to reflect western norms
Document Summary
Part of what makes hiv so hard to address is our complex relationship to taboos around sexuality. Explore some of the concrete ways this discomfort impacts the transmission of hiv. Recognize that these taboos carry diff meanings cross-culturally. How deal w international health risk when requires to deal w very openly. What sexuality may rep for and to diff communities. 9. 2 aids and the globalization of sexuality reading. Aids = both a product and a cause of globalization. Often claimed that aids is the first global epidemic, it was recognized as a real danger in the late 80s. Hiv = striking in the way it links the least developed and the most developed regions of the world. First identified and named among gay men in coastal cities of the usa, and homosexual transmission remains sig in number of rich countries and not insig in number of poor ones, despite frequent gvt denial and obfuscation.
