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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Political Economy, Sex and Cultural Logics: A View from Zaire
Author:Schoepf, Brooke G.ISNI
Year:1991
Periodical:African Urban Quarterly (ISSN 0747-6108)
Volume:6
Issue:1-2
Period:February-May
Pages:94-106
Language:English
Notes:biblio. refs.
Geographic terms:Congo (Democratic Republic of)
Central Africa
Subjects:AIDS
Politics and Government
Economics and Trade
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
economics
Health, Nutrition, and Medicine
Medicine, Nutrition, Public Health
AIDS (Disease)
Abstract:When heterosexual transmission of the HIV was discovered in Africa, biomedical researchers regarded it as a new epidemiological paradigm. However, the explanation for this African 'difference' lies not in 'African sexuality', but rather in situations of risk produced by intersections of biology, political economy and culture. After summarizing epidemiological reports on the incidence of AIDS in Zaire, the author uses ethnographic data to link sexual relationship to socioeconomic conditions and shows how prolonged economic crisis, culturally constructed gender roles and meanings of AIDS have led to a burgeoning pandemic. She then looks at the cultural politics of response to AIDS in Kinshasa and explores issues raised by some Western constructions of AIDS and sexuality in Africa. She concludes, amongst others, that sex for money or other support, once a survival strategy, has become a death strategy for women; that in order to understand HIV transmission, it is necessary to know how urban centres are linked to their hinterlands; that because of AIDS, the search for sustainable development strategies that foster gender equality and eradicate poverty is a priority of the greatest urgency in Africa; and that epidemiology that focuses narrowly on number of partners, sexual mores and sexually transmitted diseases and ignores the social context of disease transmission cannot claim scientific credibility. Notes, ref., sum.
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