When Bodies Remember: Experiences and Politics of AIDS in South AfricaIn this book, France's leading medical anthropologist takes on one of the most tragic stories of the global AIDS crisis—the failure of the ANC government to stem the tide of the AIDS epidemic in South Africa. Didier Fassin traces the deep roots of the AIDS crisis to apartheid and, before that, to the colonial period. One person in ten is infected with HIV in South Africa, and President Thabo Mbeki has initiated a global controversy by funding questionable medical research, casting doubt on the benefits of preventing mother-to-child transmission, and embracing dissidents who challenge the viral theory of AIDS. Fassin contextualizes Mbeki's position by sensitively exploring issues of race and genocide that surround this controversy. Basing his discussion on vivid ethnographical data collected in the townships of Johannesburg, he passionately demonstrates that the unprecedented epidemiological crisis in South Africa is a demographic catastrophe as well as a human tragedy, one that cannot be understood without reference to the social history of the country, in particular to institutionalized racial inequality as the fundamental principle of government during the past century. |
Contents
1 As If Nothing Ever Happened | 1 |
2 An Epidemic of Disputes | 30 |
3 Anatomy of the Controversies | 75 |
4 The Imprint of the Past | 121 |
5 The Embodiment of the World | 173 |
6 Living with Death | 228 |
This World We Live In | 271 |
Notes | 281 |
Brief Chronology of South African History | 321 |
Maps | 327 |
329 | |
353 | |
Other editions - View all
When Bodies Remember: Experiences and Politics of AIDS in South Africa Didier Fassin Limited preview - 2007 |
When Bodies Remember: Experiences and Politics of AIDS in South Africa Didier Fassin Limited preview - 2007 |
When Bodies Remember: Experiences and Politics of AIDS in South Africa Didier Fassin No preview available - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
accused activists African populations African Renaissance AIDS dissidents AIDS in South anthropology antiretroviral drugs apartheid April become boyfriend clinical context controversy cultural death discourse disease dissidents epidemic especially ethical existence experience fact Fassin global government’s health minister history of AIDS HIV-positive HIV/AIDS human illness inequalities infection interpretation Johannesburg live Mail and Guardian means Medicine memory ment mines moral mother-to-child transmission Nelson Mandela nevirapine organizations Paris past patients percent Peter Duesberg polemic policies political present president Pretoria prevention of mother-to-child Project Coast public health Puleng question racial racist rands rape reality risk Sarafina scientific scientists sexual sida social South Africa South African society Soweto statistics story suffering Thabo Mbeki tion township treatment Treatment Action Campaign trial truth urban violence Virodene virus Weekly Mail women workers Wouter Basson Zuma
Popular passages
Page xvi - To articulate the past historically does not mean to recognize it "the way it really was" (Ranke). It means to seize hold of a memory as it flashes up at a moment of danger.