Drawing on a wide range of methodologies, this book documents a diverse portfolio of religious responses to HIV and AIDS at the local and global levels in sites from sub-Saharan Africa to New York City. The volume goes beyond the psychology of religion, which is often based on how religion is used to cope with illness. It seeks to examine the role of religious institutions and cultures as key players in civil society, and to examine not only psychological factors, but social, cultural, economic and political dimensions of religious responses to the AIDS epidemic. At times religious movements have provided powerful forces for community mobilisation in response to the social vulnerability, economic exclusion and health problems associated with HIV. In other contexts, religious cultures have reproduced values and practices that have seriously impeded more effective approaches to mitigate the epidemic. By highlighting these complex and sometimes contradictory social processes, this book provides new insights into the potential for religious institutions to address the HIV epidemic more effectively. More broadly, it shows how research can be done on religion in the area of global public health, showing how civil society organizations shape opportunities for health promotion: a crucial and new area of global public health research. This book was originally published as a special issue of Global Public Health.

Throughout the world, the threat of HIV/AIDS to women's health has become the focus of increased concern. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (2004) reports that almost 20 million women and girls are living with HIV globally, accounting for nearly half of all people living with HIV worldwide. Infection rates among women are rising in every region worldwide including high-income countries in which heterosexual intercourse may now be the most common mode of transmission. Although there are many contributing factors to the current trends in HIV, most women who become HIV-infected do not practice "high-risk" behaviour. Women worldwide may individually view themselves as less susceptible than men, and may pay less attention about how HIV is transmitted and how to prevent infection. There are also gender inequalities, stemming from sexual double standards that constrain women's access to care, treatment, and support. This work focuses on international perspectives on women and HIV casting a deliberately wide net addressing the issue of the interaction between HIV and gender in a specific geographic area. Our intention is to provide a forum for innovative manuscripts whose contribution to the literature is found in their unique approach to this interaction and application of empirical investigation to unique problems and/or populations. This material was published in the Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment.

This book is a successor to the earlier and widely-used Business Organization. In this book the author helps the student to develop his or her own critical and conceptual understanding of the subject. As the author reviews the various approaches - classical, human relations, behavioural science, systems and contingency theories - he shows that none of them offers a simple progression from error to truth, but that all of them combine to contribute to a broader view of the field. The final chapter summarizes the author's viewpoint, applying the different approaches to a particular case study.

This edited collection brings together scholarship from established and emerging scholars in HIV/AIDS studies, French studies, Visual Arts, and Dance. As French writers and artists from the past five to ten years have been revisiting the AIDS crisis and its attendant cultural amnesia, their work has brought about the necessity of foregrounding vulnerability, exposure, risk, citizenship, and trauma when considering disease. By way of probing "rawness" and its varying iterations, this volume gathers analyses of HIV/AIDS productions from the 1980s to today in the service of excavating lessons learned by those living in proximity to disease. These lessons provide important tools to understand and discuss both the ongoing HIV and SARS-CoV-2 pandemics. The volume thus highlights the specificities of the former while offering solutions on how to discuss and mitigate the latter.

First published in 1996. The incidence of HIV/AIDS in society has reached epidemic levels. People of all ages are contracting the disease, and with the advances in medication and treatment, those with the disease are living longer. This book discusses the unique issues facing older adults with HIV/AIDS and addresses living with the disease.

AIDS, Behavior, and Culture presents a bold challenge to the prevailing wisdom of "the global AIDS industry" and offers an alternative framework for understanding what works in HIV prevention. Arguing for a behavior-based approach, Green and Ruark make the case that the most effective programs are those that encourage fundamental behavioral changes such as abstinence, delay of sex, faithfulness, and cessation of injection drug use. Successful programs are locally based, low cost, low tech, innovative, and built on existing cultural structures. In contrast, they argue that anthropologists and public health practitioners focus on counseling, testing, condoms, and treatment, and impose their Western values, culture, and political ideologies in an attempt to "liberate" non-Western people from sexual repression and homophobia. This provocative book is essential reading for anyone working in HIV/AIDS prevention, and a stimulating introduction to the key controversies and approaches in global health and medical anthropology for students and general readers.

Successive South African governments have had controversial views on HIV and AIDS which have led to allegations that South Africa is in a state of denial about the AIDS epidemic. This book attempts to determine the validity of such claims of government denial by formulating and testing a denial hypothesis. The hypothesis is contextualized with an overview of the South African epidemic as well as a review of allegations of government denial. It reveals possible political factors that may motivate policy-makers to resort to official denial and tentatively concludes with a confirmation of the allegations contained in the denial hypothesis. However, this is done within the broader notion that denial is inherently vague and couched in language (rarely in writing) and therefore difficult to test with certainty and as such this book's real value lies in the insights gained into the complex politics of denial. By exploring the dynamics of denial and denialism and applying this to the South African AIDS epidemic, this study provides a comprehensive analysis.

AIDS epidemics continue to threaten the livelihoods of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa. Three decades after the disease was first recognized, the annual death toll from AIDS exceeds that from wars, famine and floods combined. Yet despite millions of dollars of aid and research, there has previously been little detailed on-the-ground analysis of the multifaceted impacts on rural people. Filling that gap, this book brings together recent evidence of AIDS impacts on rural households, livelihoods, and agricultural practice in sub-Saharan Africa. There is particular emphasis on the role of women in affected households, and on the situation of children. The book is unique in presenting micro-level information collected by original empirical research in a range of African countries, and showing how well-grounded conclusions on trends, impacts and local responses can be applied to the design of HIV-responsive policies and programmes. AIDS impacts are more diverse than we previously thought, and local responses more varied - sometimes innovative, sometimes desperate. The book represents a major contribution to our understanding of the impacts of AIDS in the epidemic's heartland, and how these can be managed at different levels.

Upon it's first publication twenty years ago, "And The Band Played" on was quickly recognized as a masterpiece of investigatve reporting. An international bestseller, a nominee for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and made into a critically acclaimed movie, Shilts' expose revealed why AIDS was allowed to spread unchecked during the early 80's while the most trusted institutions ignored or denied the threat. One of the few true modern classics, it changed and framed how AIDS was discussed in the following years. Now republished in a special 20th Anniversary edition, "And the Band Played On" remains one of the essential books of our time.

Inner-city Sydney was the epicenter of gay life in the Southern hemisphere in the 1970s and early 1980s. Gay men moved from across Australasia to find liberation in the city's vibrant community networks; and when HIV and AIDS devastated those networks, they grieved, suffered, and survived in ways that have often been left out of the historical record. This book excavates the intimate lives and memories of HIV-positive gay men in Sydney, focusing on the critical years between 1982 and 1996, when HIV went from being a terrifying unidentified disease to a chronic condition that could be managed with antiretroviral medication. Using oral histories and archival research, Cheryl Ware offers a sensitive, moving exploration of how HIV-positive gay men navigated issues around disclosure, health, sex, grief, death, and survival. HIV Survivors in Sydney reveals how gay men dealt with the virus both within and outside of support networks, and how they remember these experiences nearly three decades later.

Winner of the Sociology of Health and Illness Book Prize 2008 Of approximately 37 million HIV positive people in the world, 24.7 million live in sub-Saharan Africa and about 5..5 million in South Africa. Despite its relatively powerful economy and infrastructure, South Africa has been dramatically affected by the HIV pandemic. Using narrative analysis of a three year interview study and textual analysis of political materials, HIV in South Africa examines the impact of HIV on people's everyday lives in the country. Examining the relationship between personal accounts of living with HIV and wider medical, political and religious discourses, the book also highlights the significance of class, race and gender on individuals' experiences. These engaging stories of everyday lives provide an accessible way to connect with HIV as a health and development issue. Fascinating, challenging and constructive, this is an important contribution in an area of great social relevance. The ebook is available free of charge to those with addresses on the United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Index of Medium and Low Rankings (see http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/pdfs/report/HDR_2006_Tables.pdf), who can apply to the following address: www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk

A witch's curse, an imperialist conspiracy, a racist plot-HIV/AIDS is a catastrophic health crisis with complex cultural dimensions. From small villages to the international system, explanations of where it comes from, who gets it, and who dies are tied to political agendas, religious beliefs, and the psychology of devastating grief. Frequently these explanations conflict with science and clash with prevention and treatment programs. In Witches, Westerners, and HIV Alexander Roedlach draws on a decade of research and work in Zimbabwe to compare beliefs about witchcraft and conspiracy theories surrounding HIV/AIDS in Africa. He shows how both types of beliefs are part of a process of blaming others for AIDS, a process that occurs around the globe but takes on local, culturally specific forms. He also demonstrates the impact of these beliefs on public health and advocacy programs, arguing that cultural misunderstandings contribute to the failure of many well-intentioned efforts. This insightful book provides a cultural perspective essential for everyone interested in AIDS and cross-cultural health issues.

Efforts within the past decade to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa have dealt with HIV/AIDS principally as a medical concern-despite the fact that doctors continue to be confronted with the complex relationship of the disease to broader social issues. When medical and governmental institutions fail, artists step in. Contemporary performances in Uganda often focus on gender and health-related issues specific to women and youths, in which song texts warn against risky sexual environments or unprotected sexual behavior. Music, dance, and drama are principal tools of local initiatives that disseminate information, mobilize resources, and raise societal consciousness regarding issues related to HIV/AIDS. Through case studies, song texts, interviews, and testimonies, Singing for Life: HIV/AIDS and Music in Uganda examines the links between the decline in Uganda's infection rate and grassroots efforts that make use of music, dance, and drama. Only when supported and encouraged by such performances drawing on localized musical traditions have medical initiatives taken root and flourished in local healthcare systems. Gregory Barz shows how music can be both a mode of promoting health and a force for personal therapy, presenting a cultural analysis of hope and healing.

AIDS on the Agenda is written for policymakers, managers, and program staff in development and humanitarian agencies, to promote debate about the challenges that confront them in a world which has been changed for ever by the pandemic of AIDS. The book considers three possible responses to the problem: * Do nothing.* Try to specialize in direct AIDS work.* Adapt core programs and internal systems to respond to the impact of AIDS.The author argues for the third approach as the essential initial response. She shows how mainstream work in a wide range of sectors - including food security, livelihoods support, education, health promotion, and emergency provision of water and sanitation - can be modified to reduce susceptibility to HIV infection and vulnerability to the impacts of AIDS. She also offers practical advice on modifying personnel and financial systems to protect the interests of staff and the viability of organizations when operating in AIDS-prone contexts.The text is based on case studies drawn from the experiences of three agencies (ActionAid, Oxfam International, and Save the Children UK) and their partners; and on insights contributed by a wide range of other organizations. The problems inherent in the 'mainstreaming' approach are dealt with frankly and constructively. The comprehensive Resources section offers user-friendly guidance on the following topics: * Researching and predicting the internal impacts of AIDS* Assessing the impacts of AIDS education and awareness-raising* Drafting a workplace policy* Monitoring the impact of AIDS and of internal mainstreaming* Training for mainstreaming AIDS in development and humanitarian work* Undertaking community research formainstreaming AIDS in development and humanitarian work* Adapting organizational systems

Contents:
List of Tables and Illustrations Glossary Acknowledgments Preface 1. The Sociology of Knowledge on HIV and AIDS 2. The Medicalization of Gay Desire in San Francisco (1974-1983) 3. The Early Demographics of AIDS:
Case Studies of The First Nine Gay Male AIDS Cases in San Francisco 4. More Gay Men Reported With AIDS in San Francisco: 15 Case Studies from 1981 5. The Mechanics of AIDS Surveillance: An Historical Critique of The Demography of Risk 6. AIDS Surveillance Statistics: Changing The Subjects and Object of Study 7. Conclusion Notes Works Cited Index

As the AIDS crisis reaches new heights globally with no cure in the immediate future, the time is ripe to step back and examine the roots of this epidemic. In When AIDS Began, Michelle Cochrane constructs the making of this disease and dispels many of the misconceptions that surround it. By examining the early outbreaks in San Francisco, Cochrane unfolds the "creation" of AIDS in one geographic location and then traces how and why major claims about the transmission of HIV were made, extrapolated and then disseminated to the rest of the world - all important factors in understanding this disease.

Prisons and AIDS is the first book to offer critical information on the proliferation of HIV and AIDS among prison populations and to provide a much needed resource for the design and implementation of education and prevention programs within correctional facilities. Written by experts in the field - including lead author Ronald L. Braithwaite, one of the foremost authorities on public health in the United States - this comprehensive resource is grounded in solid research, including survey information funded by the National Institute of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control. The book details numerous case studies from a variety of correctional facilities that reveal compelling information on frequency of sexual contact, drug use, needle sharing, tattooing, and the lack of access to condoms among inmates. In response to the disproportionately high incarceration rate of ethnic minorities, the authors provide strategies for developing culturally sensitive HIV/AIDS prevention programs in correctional settings. The book also documents differences in the patterns of HIV/AIDS cases among adult and juvenile and male and female inmates and explores policies and programs relevant to these populations, including education and prevention, testing and disclosure, partner notification, and housing. Written for policymakers, researchers, educators, health and human service providers, managers, and administrators of correctional institutions and community-based organizations, Prisons and AIDS provides the essential information for making informed decisions concerning this growing public health crisis.

Among the chief themes of this book are the representation of AIDS in the mass media and in the arts, and the encouragement of a wider understanding of the personal impact of AIDS and its social experience, particularly among those social groups living with the highest levels of illness, death and mourning.

In this single volume, William N. Elwood has gathered potent evidence of the impact that the HIV/AIDS epidemic has had on the world, its communities, and its inhabitants, and he addresses the role of communication in affecting the way in which people respond to AIDS. With a multidisciplinary group of contributors and topics ranging from political rhetoric to interpersonal discourse, "Power in the Blood" offers a multitude of ways in which to think about power, politics, HIV prevention, and people living with HIV. Readers will be able to use this information in class discussions, program designs, grant applications, and research, as well as in their own lives. With this volume, Elwood makes a thoroughly convincing argument that communication is the key to understanding, treating, and preventing AIDS, and he inspires further action toward the goal of ending the AIDS crisis.

Dry Bones Breathe: Gay Men Creating Post-AIDS Identities and Cultures breaks new ground in offering an original and insightful interpretation of gay men s shifting experience of the AIDS epidemic. From Dry Bones Breathe, you ll gain a deeper understanding of current community debates focused on circuit parties, unprotected sex, and gay men s sexual cultures, and you will learn how social, political, and biomedical changes are dramatically transforming gay identities and cultures.Dry Bones Breathe is Eric Rofes'explosive follow-up to Reviving the Tribe, a book which broke open debates in gay communities around the world about sex, identity, and gay men s relationship to AIDS. In this volume, Rofes contends that most gay men no longer experience AIDS as the crisis they did during the 1980s. Gay men often attribute this shift to the advent of protozoa inhibitors, but Rofes explains how other factors, including the epidemic s predicted trajectory, new treatments for opportunistic infections, the passage of time, and the increasing diversity of gay men inhabiting communities throughout the country have set in motion the transformation of gay life. AIDS organizations and gay leaders, however, continue to assert that gay men experience AIDS as an emergency, resulting in a tremendous dissonance between gay leaders and their communities. In the midst of this controversy, Dry Bones Breathe lets you share in stories of hope and recovery and a new vision for AIDS work that demands a radical redesign of prevention, care, and activism. Dry Bones Breathe tackles several other issues concerning the powerful shifts occurring in gay communities and cultures by: explaining why an understanding of the terms "post-AIDS" and "post-crisis" is crucial to interpreting contemporary gay male cultures and what Australian prevention theorists have to offer gay men in the United States describing the "Protozoa Moment" and exploring how a dangerous obsession with pharmaceuticals is leading many to mistakenly attribute all changes in gay men s cultures to combination therapies examining the writings of Larry Kramer, Andrew Sullivan, Michelangelo Signorile, and Gabriel Rightly to illustrate how the crisis construct has unleashed a backlash against gay sexual cultures discussing the dramatic diminution in gay men s AIDS-related deaths in epicenter cities and the impact of shrinking obituary pages on gay men s mental health exploring the diverse relationships to the epidemic forged by young gay men, gay men of color, gay men from rural or small towns, and middle-aged men not infected with HI detailing how HI prevention and service organizations targeting gay men must redesign their mission and restructure their work In response to continuing efforts to direct gay men back into a state of emergency, Dry Bones Breathe suggests that long-term prevention efforts must be constructed around something other than a crisis. While AIDS organizations look at gay men s diminished participation in AIDS activism, Rofes argues that these organizations should face how they have distanced themselves from the reality of most gay men s lives. From stories and experiences full of hope, anger, sadness, and strength, Dry Bones Breathe will teach you about gay men who no longer base their identities and cultures solely around AIDS.

The Life and Death of ACT UP/LA explores the history of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, Los Angeles, part of the militant anti-AIDS movement of the 1980s and 1990s. ACT UP/LA battled government, medical, and institutional neglect of the AIDS epidemic, engaging in multi-targeted protest in Los Angeles and nationally. The book shows how appealing the direct action anti-AIDS activism was for people across the United States; as well as arguing the need to understand how the politics of place affect organizing, and how the particular features of the Los Angeles cityscape shaped possibilities for activists. A feminist lens is used, seeing social inequalities as mutually reinforcing and interdependent, to examine the interaction of activists and the outcomes of their actions. Their struggle against AIDS and homophobia, and to have a voice in their healthcare, presaged the progressive, multi-issue, anti-corporate, confrontational organizing of the late twentieth century, and deserves to be part of that history.

Activism and Marginalization in the AIDS Crisis shows readers how the advent of HIV-disease has brought into question the utility of certain forms of "activism" as they relate to understanding and fighting the social impacts of disease. This informative and powerful book is centrally concerned about the ways in which institutionally governed social constructions of HIV/AIDS affect policy and public images of the disease more so than activist efforts. It asserts that an accounting of the power institutional structures have over the dominant social constructions of HIV disease is fundamental to adequate forms of present and future AIDS activism. Chapters in Activism and Marginalization in the AIDS Crisis demonstrate how, despite what is thought of as the "successful activism" of the past decade, the claims of the HIV-positive are still being ignored, still being marginalized, and still being administratively "handled" and exploited even as the plight of those who find themselves HIV-positive worsens. Although chapters reject the assertion that activism has been a highly effective remedy to HIV-positive voicelessness, authors do not deny that activists have been vocal, but that they continue to be ignored despite their vocality.Contributors in Activism and Marginalization in the AIDS Crisis offer numerous examples of institutional control and demonstrate that institutional structures, and not activists, are controlling the public meaning of HIV-related issues. Readers learn how messages about HIV/AIDS are produced, negotiated, modified, and sustained through institutional mechanisms that serve mostly institutional interests rather than those of the HIV-positive. In gaining an understanding of these issues, readers will begin to learn how to modify and strengthen activist efforts with valuable insight on: the lack of HIV-positive voices in mainstream news portrayals of HIV/AIDS research on constructions of HIV-disease at the state government level social constructions and how they affect HIV/AIDS policy the political construction of AIDS and interest-based struggles the emergent "bio-politics" of HIV and homosexuality in the U.S. how institutional power works to govern public understanding of HIV diseaseInstitutional structures are defined in this book as groups engaged in and defined by the production of various "truths" which sustain them. Institutional power may be defined as the capacity to regulate, constrain, and disseminate versions of "truth." Activism and Marginalization in the AIDS Crisis reveals how HIV activist groups have been outmaneuvered when it comes to the production and dissemination of various "truths" about HIV/AIDS by institutional structures more deeply steeped in social legitimacy and which have a superior capacity for message dissemination.HIV/AIDS activists, HIV-positive persons and those with AIDS, HIV/AIDS educators, public and institutional policymakers, health professionals, and the general public will find this book essential to understanding the social constructions of HIV/AIDS, how these affect HIV/AIDS-related policy and public opinion, and how to begin to cipher through the plethora of information to find and promote the "truth."

AIDS: Rights, Risk and Reason contains a mix of papers linking research with the development of theoretical frameworks in a readable and accessibole style. Issues examined include: perceptions of risk and risk-taking behaviour; rights and responsibilities; and the rationality that underpins individual and collective responses to HIV/AIDS.

A significant contribution to the ongoing debate on aid effectiveness, Aid Effectiveness in Africa starts from the premise that money alone will not bring sustained development to Africa. With grounding in years of experience and fieldwork, Phyllis R. Pomerantz examines the relationship between aid donors and recipients and the extent to which trust is present in today's aid environment. Pomerantz concludes that there are serious gaps, created in part by a striking lack of knowledge of the African context and culture on the part of the donors, and troublesome institutional constraints that make it difficult for aid agencies to change the way they operate. Joining the urgent call to transform aid agencies and increase aid effectiveness, and eschewing pat solutions and simple formulae, the book offers realistic recommendations and provides an eloquent argument for further, far-reaching reform.