HIV exceptionalism : development through disease in Sierra Leone / Adia Benton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Benton, Adia, 1977- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

HIV-positive persons--Care--Government policy--Sierra Leone.

HIV-positive persons.

AIDS (Disease)--Government policy--Sierra Leone.

AIDS (Disease).

Health facilities--Sierra Leone--Finance.

Health facilities.

Federal aid to health facilities--Sierra Leone.

Federal aid to health facilities.

Public health--Anthropological aspects--Sierra Leone.

Public health.

HIV Infections.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome.

Public health--Anthropological aspects.

Finance.

AIDS (Disease)--Government policy.

HIV-positive persons--Care--Government policy.

Sierra Leone.

Health facilities--Finance.

Medical Subjects:

HIV Infections.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome.

Sierra Leone.

Physical Description:

xii, 176 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, [2015]

Summary:

In 2002, Sierra Leone emerged from a decadelong civil war. Seeking international attention and development aid, its government faced a dilemma. Though devastated by conflict, Sierra Leone had a low prevalence of HIV. However, like most African countries, it stood to benefit from a large influx of foreign funds specifically targeted at HIV/AIDS prevention and care. What Adia Benton chronicles in this ethnographically rich and often moving book is how one war-ravaged nation reoriented itself as a country suffering from HIV at the expense of other, more pressing health concerns. During her fieldwork in the capital, Freetown, thirty NGOs administered internationally funded programs that included HIV/AIDS prevention and care. Benton probes why HIV exceptionalism-the idea that HIV is an exceptional disease requiring an exceptional response-continues to guide approaches to the epidemic worldwide and especially in Africa, even in low-prevalence settings. In the fourth decade since the emergence of HIV/AIDS, many question whether the effort and money spent on this health crisis has helped or exacerbated the problem. HIV Exceptionalism reveals the unanticipated consequences of HIV/AIDS development programs. Book jacket.

Contents:

Mapping the post/civil war HIV terrain

Exceptional life

Disclosure and the imperative to talk

Imaging the positive life

For love of country.

Notes:

"Sponsored by Quadrant's Health and Society group (advisory board: Susan Craddock, Jennifer Gunn, Alex Rothman, and Karen-Sue Taussig), and by the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota."

"A different version of chapter 2 was previously published as "Exceptional Suffering?: Enumeration and Vernacular Accounting in the HIV-Positive Experience," Medical Anthropology 31, no. 4 (July 2012): 310-328; Medical Anthropology is available online at http://www.informaworld.com."

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780816692439

9780816692422

0816692424

0816692432

OCLC:

880809048

Publisher Number:

99969122160