The revelation of being HIV positive continues to be a discourse fraught with meaning. In Infecting the Treatment: Being an HIV-Positive Analyst, Gilbert Cole offers an intimate and deeply insightful examination of disclosure of his HIV seropositivity on his analytic sense of self and on his clinical work with patients.
Cole begins his journey of discovery by meditating on the meanings that being HIV positive have had for him, and by situating these personal meanings within the multiple meanings of HIV seropositivity generated by our culture, leading to a clinical discussion of the pros and cons of disclosure to one's patients. What begins as a consideration of disclosure of an ostensibly medical fact, opens to an exploration of the broader problematic of disclosure in the context of questions of sameness and difference, of dependence and autonomy, and of the ethical ground of psychoanalytic practice. He illuminates these issues by circling back to his own predicament, which took the form of an apparent conflict between his self-image as a psychoanalytic therapist committed to a psychoanalytic treatment approach and aspects of his self-experience that seemed uncomfortably dissonant with this identity and this commitment. He approached resolution of this conflict when he became able to use his HIV seropositivity as a metaphor for aspects of the treatment process.

Comprising Cole's personal engagement of the issues inherent in being an HIV-positive analyst, his report of clinical work attendant to disclosure of his condition, and a research project compiling the experiences of other HIV-positive analysts, Infecting the Treatment is an intimate and deeply insightful examination of the impact of one analyst's disclosure of HIV seropositivity on his analytic sense of self. With admirable candor and uncommon thoughtfulness, Cole shows how the analyst's disclosure of information of the most meaningful sort may deepen and even transform the therapeutic dialogue.

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.

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."

In this guidebook, People With HIV and Those Who Help Them, author Dennis Shelby uses the reported experiences of HIV-positive men to chart the course of living with HIV. He offers a consistent clinical-theoretical framework that encompasses the vast range of clinical problems clinicians may encounter in their work with HIV-positive individuals across the span of infection.This book provides a detailed account of the many psychological transformations that infected people experience. People With HIV and Those Who Help Them enables clinicians and students to better address the problems commonly encountered in clinical practice with persons with HIV. Clinicians will be able to gain perspective on the process of knowing one is infected, infected men will see their process mirrored and validated, and family, friends, and partners of infected men will gain a greater appreciation for the experience of their relative, friend, and partner. As clinicians have gained experience in working with HIV-positive people, they have become increasingly aware of the complexity of successful clinical intervention with HIV-related problems. In his book, Shelby "breaks down" this complex process into its component aspects: psychological impact of HIV infection the process of adapting to the knowledge of infection the dynamic process involved with HIV infection common problems and solutions encountered by infected people case examples that illustrate the clinical framework intensive psychotherapy and HIV infectionThe study that is the basis for this book charts the initial psychological impact and many changes and transformations of the experience of being HIV-positive. While infected people are often encouraged to maintain hopeful outlooks and to think of themselves as living with HIV rather than dying from it, it is often a long and arduous process to achieve and maintain this perspective. People With HIV and Those Who Help Them is a guide to help those with HIV to keep a positive outlook on life.

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.

The purpose of this book is to encourage professionals to become involved in family-oriented services to prevent the spread of HIV and its consequences and to provide examples of strategies for mobilizing family resources in the prevention and adaptation to HIV and AIDS. The members of the NIMH Consortium on Families and HIV/AIDS have prepared these chapters building on their research and practice experience. Together some of the nation?s most capable behavioral prevention and treatment scientists have developed these prevention programs based on sound scientific principles and are currently testing them in rigorous controlled trials in communities across the country. While these interventions have not yet been demonstrated to be effective, they have received rigorous peer review by independent scientists conducted under the auspices of the NIMH, and were considered worthy of research support. This book focuses on populations were HIV infection is now quickly spreading, and yet relatively little is know about family interventions with these populations. The prevention programs address the spectrum of programs to prevent the spread of HIV and its consequences. The HIV prevention programs are intended to promote greater responsibility in general, and thus encourage healthier lifestyles with respect to drug and sexual behavior among family members. Although not exclusively, a large proportion of the programs presented in this book were designed for African American populations and address the Prevention of the spread of HIV/AIDS and its consequences. With that caveat, however, it should be noted that these interventions can also be adapted for use with other cultural groups, other chronic diseases, STDs and multiple family configurations.

"AIDS, Sex, and Culture" is a revealing examination of the impact the AIDS epidemic in Africa has had on women, based on the author's own extensive ethnographic research.
based on the author's own story growing up in South Africa
looks at the impact of social conservatism in the US on AIDS prevention programs
discussion of the experiences of women in areas ranging from Durban in KwaZulu Natal to rural settlements in Namibia and Botswana
includes a chapter written by Sibongile Mkhize at the University of KwaZulu Natal who tells the story of her own family's struggle with AIDS

The HIV epidemic remains one of the most challenging of modern times, despite the enormous promise of anti-retroviral treatment. This timely book takes a critical look at HIV/AIDS in the context of South Africa, the country with the largest HIV epidemic in the world. Drawing on feminist science and technology studies and a close analysis of a range of textual sources, Politics in the Making of HIV/AIDS in South Africa tracks how the disease has been formed and transformed through political struggles. It illuminates the ways these struggles have also generated new selves for those living with HIV. In conducting this enquiry, the book addresses pressing questions about the politics of public health, the ethics of biological citizenship, and agency and the making of neoliberal subjects. It should appeal to scholars and students with interests in the sociology of health and medicine, the body in society, science and technology studies, and public health.

Nearly thirty years since HIV/AIDS was first identified, confusion over effective mechanisms of controlling and eradicating the illness remain prevalent. This book highlights the need for comprehensive approaches to governance, as responses to HIV/AIDS become increasingly focused upon the health aspect of the epidemic, and financial commitments become subject to aid fatigue. This book examines the roles and influence of multiple actors and initiatives that have come to constitute the global response to the epidemic. It considers how these actors and structures of governance enhance, or limit, participation and accountability; and the impact this is having upon effective HIV/AIDS responses across the world. The book addresses participation and accountability as key elements of governance in four thematic areas: the role of the state and democratic governance; non-state actors and mechanisms of political governance; public-private partnerships and economic governance; and multilateral institutions and global governance. Drawing on the insights of public health specialists; political scientists; economists; lawyers; those working with community groups, and within international organisations, it offers valuable perspectives on the governance of HIV/AIDS. Aimed at both academics and practitioners throughout the world, this book contributes to the academic debate surrounding global governance, health and development economics, and the work of multiple international organisations and civil society organisations.

This book challenges the conventional security-based international policy frameworks that have developed for dealing with HIV/AIDS during and after conflicts, and examines first-hand evidence and experiences of conflict and HIV/AIDS.

Since the turn of the century international policy agenda on security have focused on HIV/AIDS only as a concern for national and international security, ignoring people s particular experiences, vulnerabilities and needs in conflict and post-conflict contexts. Developing a gender-based framework for HIV/AIDS-conflict analysis, this book draws on research conducted in Burundi to understand the implications of post-conflict demobilization and reintegration policies on women and men and their vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. By centring the argument on personal reflections, this work provides a critical alternative method to engage with conflict and HIV/AIDS, and a much richer understanding of the relationship between the two.

International Security, Conflict and Gender will be of interest to students and scholars of healthcare politics, security and governance.

?????? Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) is an international humanitarian organization, committed to providing medical assistance to populations in danger and to raising awareness of the plight of the people they help. Today MSF is active in more than 60 countries in the world. ?????? MSF has been working in Peru since 1985. In Peru, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS is low, but highest amongst the most neglected members of society there, mainly homosexual men and commercial sex workers. Since 2004, MSF has offered HIV/AIDS care in the slum of Villa El Salvador, Lima. ?????? In Lima, MSF has been working in Lurigancho, one of the most populated prisons of Latin America. In this prison the risk of contracting HIV/AIDS is 5 to 7 times higher than in the rest of the country. ?????? At the end of 2007 MSF hand over all Peruvian projects to local authorities, leaving the country after almost 25 years. ?????? Larry Towell (Magnum Photos) was commissioned by MSF to travel to the prison and the slums in Lima to photograph the result of MSF's 25-year presence, and show that the area is now ready to continue its fight against HIV and AIDS on its own. ?????? Towell brings us black and white images of people shunned by society and desperate through poverty, their situation exacerbated through the endemic HIV and AIDS in their already marginalised population. MSF has targeted their cause for the past 25 years. ?????? This book is a celebration of their work and the people whose existence they have salvaged.

Since the democratic elections in 1994, there have been concerted efforts to redress race and gender inequalities in South Africa. Learners and teachers have responded in their own ways to change and this nuanced analysis reveals their struggles to realise gender equality by living gender differently. In distinguishing short-term interventions to change behaviour from institutional approaches, which seek to transform school structures, this book offers a new framework for understanding gender-equality initiatives.

This volume of the "International Perspectives on Education and Society" series examines the relationship between HIV/AIDS and education worldwide. Much of the mystery surrounding HIV/AIDS and education lies in the fact that many factors contextualize their intersection. Many of the children who are at risk of not finishing school or have never had the chance to attend school live day-to-day in communities with high HIV/AIDS infection rates. To exacerbate the problem, in some countries the highest HIV/AIDS infection rates are in marginalized and extremely poor communities while in others it is within the most affluent communities. This volume examines how education supports, combats or reacts to HIV/AIDS awareness, prevention and impact worldwide as well as its impact on education systems and teaching forces. Given the context and prevalence of HIV/AIDS worldwide, this volume presents information, policy case studies, and empirical research for use by educators, policymakers, and organizations about the relationship between HIV/AIDS and education, including how HIV/AIDS has impacted education systems and the potential impact education has on HIV/AIDS.

Psychotherapy and ethnography are jointly employed to produce an account of HIV-positive children's lives (and deaths) in Zimbabwe that is sensitive to emotions and their social contexts. The study explores the lives of children growing up HIV-positive in the eastern Zimbabwean town of Mutare at a time of severe crisis in the state, marked by impoverishment, organized violence and mass death. This ethnography grewout of a psychotherapeutic engagement with a group of children living with HIV. The study examines children's experiences through the institutional domains of family and kin, clinics and other forms of healing, churches andreligious practices, and experiences of dying and bereavement. Against patrilineal norms, much daily caring occurs in mothers' families. Clinics continue to offer partial western medical care despite daunting resource constraints. Western medicine sits on older templates of 'traditional' and 'spiritual' healing. Anti-retrovirals and other basic medicines are available but may exacerbate domestic discord and fail to meet more obvious physical symptoms. Children and their families appear to prefer spiritual alternatives to medical care, perhaps partly as a result of the severe limitations placed on the latter. A wide variety of religious practices, primarily Christian in a plethora of forms, flourish in the context. Dying may come to be seen by children as preferable to continued struggle against severe adversity. Child deaths are deeply imbued with religious practice and given voice through religious idioms. Ross Parsons has extensive experience as a psychotherapist, a writer and a social researcher. He lives in Mutare and teaches anthropology and psychology at Africa University. Weaver Press: Zimbabwe and Southern Africa (South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Namibia)

A sparkling satire on international aid and celebrity, Looking for Bono charts one man's accidental quest to bring water to his community. Baba is a semi-literate man living a simple life centred on the local auto repair shop in Palemo, how he will find his next meal and an obsession with his disinterested, Nollywood star-wannabe wife Munira and her voluptuous body. Baba is acutely aware of the water corruption that has left him, on occasion, without so much as a drop to even brush his teeth. One day on the news, a story about international humanitarian Bono flashes onscreen. Bono is in Africa to do good and like a thunderbolt, Baba decides that Bono is the answer to all of his problems. Once Bono hears about the local water issues he will want to step in and convince the president of Nigeria to end the corruption. Once the water is flowing, Baba can clean up and Munira will set her sights a little closer to home. Before he knows it, Baba is a celebrity being feted by the Lagos media and Munira has turned into his virtuous wife. Will the ensuing media storm engulf Baba as he is launched into a world of high stakes foreign aid dealings and competing interests? Or will he return to his simple life with water for his community and the renewed affections of his Munira?

In Zambia, due to the rise of tuberculosis and the closely connected HIV epidemic, a large number of children have experienced the illness or death of at least one parent. Children as Caregivers examines how well intentioned practitioners fail to realize that children take on active caregiving roles when their guardians become seriously ill and demonstrates why understanding children's care is crucial for global health policy. Using ethnographic methods, and listening to the voices of the young as well as adults, Jean Hunleth makes the caregiving work of children visible. She shows how children actively seek to "get closer" to ill guardians by providing good care. Both children and ill adults define good care as attentiveness of the young to adults' physical needs, the ability to carry out treatment and medication programs in the home, and above all, the need to maintain physical closeness and proximity. Children understand that losing their guardians will not only be emotionally devastating, but that such loss is likely to set them adrift in Zambian society, where education and advancement depend on maintaining familial, reciprocal relationships.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa has defined the childhoods of an entire generation. Over the past twenty years, international NGOs and charities have devoted immense attention to the millions of African children orphaned by the disease. But in Crying for Our Elders, anthropologist Kristen Cheney argues that these humanitarian groups have misread the crisis. Moreover, she explains how the global humanitarian focus on orphanhood often elides the social and political circumstances that present the greatest adversity to vulnerable children in effect, actually deepening the crisis and thereby affecting children's lives as irrevocably as the disease itself. Through ethnographic fieldwork and collaborative research with children in Uganda, Cheney traces how the 'best interest' principle that governs development work targeting children often does more harm than good, stigmatizing orphans and leaving children in the post-antiretroviral era even more vulnerable to exploitation. She details the dramatic effects this has on traditional family support and child protection, and stresses child empowerment over pity. Crying for Our Elders advances current discussions on humanitarianism, children's studies, orphanhood, and kinship. By exploring the unique experience of AIDS orphanhood through the eyes of children, caregivers, and policymakers, Cheney shows that despite the extreme challenges of growing up in the era of HIV/AIDS, the post-ARV generation still holds out hope for the future.

How do modern women in developing countries experience sexuality and love? Drawing on a rich variety of interview, ethnographic and survey data from her native country of Kenya, Sanyu Mojola examines how young African women, who suffer disproportionate rates of HIV infection compared to young African men, navigate their relationships, schooling, employment and financial access in the context of a devastating HIV epidemic and economic inequality. Writing from a unique outsider-insider perspective, Mojola argues that the entanglement of love, money, and the production and transformation of girls into "consuming women" lies at the heart of women's health and coming-of-age crises. Engaging in themes of gender, consumption, and the transition to adulthood, this text is an incisive analysis of gender, sexuality, and health in Africa.

Across Africa, HIV/AIDS is slowly killing millions of people in the prime of their lives, weakening state structures, deepening poverty and reversing the gains in life expectancy achieved over the past century. Although many who study the dynamics of Africa??AA's AIDS crisis accept that, to some degree, its entrenchment is a socially produced phenomenon, few have examined how the course and intensity of the epidemic have been affected by the continents ubiquitous poverty, the impact of the pervasive structural adjustment programmes or Africa??AA's marginalization in the process of globalization until now.This book explores the socio-economic context of Africa??AA's vulnerability to HIV/AIDS as well as assessing the politics of domestic and global response. Using primary and secondary data, it charts the power relations driving Africa??AA's HIV/AIDS epidemic, frustrating the possibility of alleviation and recovery as well as working to relegate the continent to a bleak and vulnerable future. In this sense, the book marks a radical departure by providing a comprehensive analysis of Africa??A A's vulnerability to AIDS and the challenges confronting policy makers as they seek to reverse its escalating prevalence on the continent. ??AAAIDS in Africa??AA is an immensely valuable introduction to the greatest pandemic facing the world today.

Finalist for the 2017 Lambda Literary "Lammy" Award in LGBTQ Studies The first book to examine the correlation between mixed-race identity and HIV/AIDS among Native American gay men and transgendered people, Indian Blood provides an analysis of the emerging and often contested LGBTQ "two-spirit" identification as it relates to public health and mixed-race identity. Prior to contact with European settlers, most Native American tribes held their two-spirit members in high esteem, even considering them spiritually advanced. However, after contact - and religious conversion - attitudes changed and social and cultural support networks were ruptured. This discrimination led to a breakdown in traditional values, beliefs, and practices, which in turn pushed many two-spirit members to participate in high-risk behaviors. The result is a disproportionate number of two-spirit members who currently test positive for HIV. Using surveys, focus groups, and community discussions to examine the experiences of HIV-positive members of San Francisco's two-spirit community, Indian Blood provides an innovative approach to understanding how colonization continues to affect American Indian communities and opens a series of crucial dialogues in the fields of Native American studies, public health, queer studies, and critical mixed-race studies.

Since the onset of the HIV epidemic, the behaviour of men who have sex with men has been subject to intense scrutiny on the part of the behavioural and sociomedical sciences. What happens when we consider the work of these sciences to be not merely descriptive, but also constitutive of the realities it describes? The Gay Science pays attention to lived experiences of sex, drugs and the scientific practices that make these experiences intelligible. Through a series of empirically and historically detailed case studies, the book examines how new technologies and scientific artifacts - such as antiretroviral therapy, digital hookup apps and research methods - mediate sexual encounters and shape the worlds and self-practices of men who have sex with men. Rather than debunking scientific practices or minimizing their significance, The Gay Science approaches these practices as ways in which we 'learn to be affected' by HIV. It explores what knowledge practices best engage us, move us and increase our powers and capacities for action. The book includes an historical analysis of drug use as a significant element in the formation of urban gay cultures; constructivist accounts of the emergence of barebacking and chemsex; a performative response to Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis and its uptake; and, a speculative analysis of ways of thinking and doing sexual community in the digital context. Combining insights from queer theory, process philosophy and science and technology studies to develop an original approach to the analysis of sexuality, drug use, public health and digital practices, this book demonstrates the ontological consequences of different modes of attending to risk and pleasure. It is suitable for those interested in cultural studies, sociology, gender and sexuality studies, digital culture, public health and drug and alcohol studies.

One in six adults in sub-Saharan Africa will die in their prime of AIDS. It is a stunning cataclysm, plunging life expectancy to pre-modern levels and orphaning millions of children. Yet political trauma does not grip Africa. People living with AIDS are not rioting in the streets or overthrowing governments. In fact, democratic governance is spreading. Contrary to fearful predictions, the social fabric is not being ripped apart by bands of unsocialized orphan children. AIDS and Power explains why social and political life in Africa goes on in a remarkably normal way, and how political leaders have successfully managed the AIDS epidemic so as to overcome any threats to their power. Partly because of pervasive denial, AIDS is not a political priority for electorates, and therefore not for democratic leaders either. AIDS activists have not directly challenged the political order, instead using international networks to promote a rights-based approach to tackling the epidemic. African political systems have proven resilient in the face of AIDS's stresses, and rulers have learned to co-opt international AIDS efforts to their own political ends. In contrast with these successes, African governments and international agencies have a sorry record of tackling the epidemic itself. AIDS and Power concludes without political incentives for HIV prevention, this failure will persist.