Identifying the existing challenges and shortfalls of China's current HIV/AIDS programming, this book provides an understanding of the history of HIV/AIDS in China, comparing government responses to global best practice in prevention and treatment. Considering three key populations in China, namely, female sex workers, people who inject drugs and floating migrants, Living in the Shadows of China's HIV/AIDS Epidemics highlights the effects of high mobility and marginalisation on the spread of HIV in China. It is argued that these groups often suffer from stigmatisation and a lack of human security, resulting in sub-optimal outcomes for HIV/AIDS intervention and prevention efforts and the reinforcement of high-risk behaviours, further contributing to the transmission of the virus to the general population. In adding to the emerging body of literature, this book further elucidates the myriad of challenges posed by HIV/AIDS epidemics, allowing sustained engagement and a fresh insight into how governments might respond to the needs of individuals living with HIV/AIDS, both in China and globally. Including case studies which give voice to research participants in a rich and engaging way, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Chinese Studies, Asian Studies, International Relations and Political Science, as well as those engaged in epidemiological studies in the Health Sciences.

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.

The spread of HIV/AIDS affects businesses in all sectors, all industries and all countries. For companies and organizations everywhere, the question is no longer whether to take action on HIV/AIDS but which actions to take. Complete with an impressive collection of complex background and research on HIV/AIDS and a foreword by Dr. Peter Piot, former Executive Director of UNAIDS, this volume collects case studies of managers worldwide faced with challenging HIV/AIDS-related management decisions. AIDS and Business will fascinate the general reader seeking an understanding of the HIV/AIDS pandemic and to the advanced reader looking to develop a more sophisticated understanding of the impact of the disease. The case studies in this volume, set in nine countries, detail the issues facing businesses operating in areas where HIV/AIDS prevalence is growing. The topics discussed include understanding the role of social and cultural factors in the spread of HIV, the different organizations and institutions fighting the epidemic, designing an HIV communications campaign, HIV testing, ethical issues, marketing ethics and CSR, condoms marketing, and designing an HIV workplace program. Useful as a resource on HIV/AIDS and business, a set of case studies, or a training tool, this book contains a unique range of tools for learning to understand the epidemic, designed from a grounded and practical business perspective.

Brazil has occupied a central role in the access to medicines movement, especially with respect to drugs used to treat those with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). How and why Brazil succeeded in overcoming powerful political and economic interests, both at home and abroad, to roll-out and sustain treatment represents an intellectual puzzle. In this book, Matthew Flynn traces the numerous challenges Brazil faced in its efforts to provide essential medicines to all of its citizens. Using dependency theory, state theory, and moral underpinnings of markets, Flynn delves deeper into the salient factors contributing to Brazil's successes and weaknesses, including control over technology, creation of political alliances, and instrumental use of normative frameworks and effectively explains the ability of countries to fulfill the prescription drug needs of its population versus the interests and operations of the global pharmaceutical industry Pharmaceutical Autonomy and Public Health in Latin America is one of the only books to provide an in-depth account of the challenges that a developing country, like Brazil, faces to fulfill public health objectives amidst increasing global economic integration and new international trade agreements. Scholars interested in public health issues, HIV/AIDS, and human rights, but also to social scientists interested in Latin America and international political economy will find this an original and thought provoking read.

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.

Drawing on rich and poignant interviews with mothers who have been diagnosed HIV-positive, Contradicting Maternity provides a rare perspective of motherhood from the mother's point of view. Whereas motherhood is often assumed to be a secondary identity compared to the central figure of the child, this book reverses the focus, arguing that maternal experience is important in its own right. The book explores the situation in which two very powerful identities, those of motherhood and of being HIVpositive, collide in the same moment. This collision takes place at the interface of complex, and often split, social and personal meanings concerning the sanctity of motherhood and the anxieties of HIV. The book offers an interpretation of how these personal and social meanings resonate with, and also fail to encompass, the experiences surrounding HIV positive mothers. Photographs, academic literature and the accounts of real women are read with both a psychodynamic and discursive eye, highlighting the contradictions within maternal experience, but also between maternal experience and the social imagination. Contradicting Maternity will appeal to scholars, students and practitioners in psychology, the social sciences and the health professions. The sensitive and readable analysis will also be of interest to mothers, whether HIV-positive or not.

Originally published in 1998 Sexual Behaviour and HIV/AIDS in Europe is detailed study comparing the major population surveys on sexual behaviour and HIV/AIDS carried out in Europe at the time of publication. Leading European researchers explore the differences and similarities between European countries in patterns of sexual behaviour and responses to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. As well as providing an empirical and methodological base for future research, the comparative analyses lead researchers, policy makers, health-educators and the media to new insights and a deeper understanding of issues that are of central concern in many countries. The chapters include discussion of data on sexual initiation, homosexual and bisexual behaviour, sexual practices, sexual partners, risk behaviour, STDs, preventive practices, the normative context, knowledge of HIV/AIDS, and attitudes towards people with HIV/AIDS. The book results from a major European Concerted Action, funded by the European Union Biomedical and Health Research programme (BIOMED), and coordinated by the Centre d'Etudes Sociologiques of the Facultes Universitaires Saint-Louis, Brussels, Belgium. It follows Sexual Interactions and HIV Risk, published in 1997.

***2020 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FINALIST*** DISASTERAMA: Adventures in the Queer Underground 1977 to 1997, is the true story of Alvin Orloff who, as a shy kid from the suburbs of San Francisco, stumbled into the wild, eclectic crowd of Crazy Club Kids, Punk Rock Nutters, Goofy Goofballs, Fashion Victims, Disco Dollies, Happy Hustlers, and Dizzy Twinks of post-Stonewall American queer culture of the late 1970s, only to see the "subterranean lavender twilit shadow world of the gay ghetto" ravished by AIDS in the 1980s. Includes an introduction by Alexander Chee (How to Write an Autobiographical Novel. In Disasterama, Orloff recalls the delirious adventures of his youth-from San Francisco to Los Angeles to New York-where insane nights, deep friendships with the creatives of the underground, and thrilling bi-coastal living led to a free-spirited life of art, manic performance, high camp antics, and exotic sexual encounters, until AIDS threatened to destroy everything he lived for. In his introduction, award-winning essayist and novelist Alexander Chee notes, "There's a strange love I have for these times that can be hard to explain. How can I love what I lived through from a time that was as 'bad' as that? But as I read this, and those days came into view again, what I think of that love now is that there was a beauty to the beauty you found then that was made the more fierce by the horror of what was happening. If you could still find the worth of your life, still find sex, love, friendship, your own self-worth amid these attempts by the state at erasure and the ravages of the AIDS epidemic, then it had the strength of something forged in fire." Orloff looks past the politics of AIDS to the people on the ground, friends of his who did not survive AIDS' wrath-the boys in black leather jackets and cackling queens in tacky frocks-remembering them not as victims, but as people who loved life, loved fun, and who were a part of the insane jigsaw of Orloff's friends. Disasterama showcases Orloff's wit and poignancy as he relays the true tale of how a bunch of pathologically flippant kids floundered through a deadly disaster, and, struggled to keep the spirit of camp and radicalism alive, even as their friends lost their lives to the plague.

This book studies the role of civil society organisations in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Russia. It looks at how Russia's HIV/AIDS epidemic has developed into a serious social, economic and political problem, and how according to the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), Russia is currently facing the biggest HIV/AIDS epidemic in all of Europe with an estimated number of 980,000 people living with HIV in 2009. The book investigates civil society organisations' contribution to social change and civil society development in post-Soviet Russia, and thus situates a specific type of civil society actors into a broader socio-political context and questions their ability to represent civic interests, particularly in the field of social policy-making and health. This allows for a better understanding of the dynamics of state-society relations in present-day Russia, and gives insight into the ways HIV/AIDS NGOs in Russia have used transnational ties in order to exert influence on domestic policy-making in the field of HIV/AIDS.

The African AIDS epidemic has sparked fierce debate over the role of religion. Some scholars and activists argue that religion is contributing to the spread of HIV and to the stigmatization of people living with AIDS. Others claim that religion reduces the spread of HIV and promotes care and support for the sick and their survivors.
Religion and AIDS in Africa offers the first comprehensive empirical account of the impact of religion on the AIDS epidemic. Jenny Trinitapoli and Alexander Weinreb draw upon extensive fieldwork in Malawi, including hundreds of interviews with religious leaders and lay people, and survey data from more than 30 other sub-Saharan African countries. Their research confirms the importance of religious narratives and institutions in everything related to AIDS in Africa. Among other key findings, Trinitapoli and Weinreb show that a combination of religious and biomedical approaches to prevention reduces risk most effectively; that a significant minority of religious leaders encourage condom use; that Christian congregations in particular play a crucial role in easing suffering among the sick and their dependents; and that religious spaces in general are vital for disseminating information and developing new strategies for HIV prevention and AIDS mitigation.
For anyone wishing to move beyond the rhetoric and ideology that plague debates about one of the most challenging crises of our time, Religion and AIDS in Africa is the authoritative account. It will change the way readers think about religious life and about AIDS in the region.

Whenever the topic of large jails and public hospitals in urban America is raised, a single idea comes to mind. It is widely believed that because we as a society have dis-invested from public health, the sick and poor now find themselves within the purview of criminal justice institutions. In Redistributing the Poor, ethnographer and historical sociologist Armando Lara-Millan takes us into the day-to-day operations of running the largest hospital and jail system in the world and argues that such received wisdom is a drastic mischaracterization of the way that states govern urban poverty at the turn of the 21st century. Rather than focus on our underinvestment of health and overinvestment of criminal justice, his idea of "redistributing the poor" draws attention to how state agencies circulate people between different institutional spaces in such a way that generates revenue for some agencies, cuts costs for others, and projects illusions that services have been legally rendered. By centering the state's use of redistribution, Lara-Millan shows how certain forms of social suffering-the premature death of mainly poor, people of color-are not a result of the state's failure to act, but instead the necessary outcome of so-called successful policy.

This book argues that the AIDS pandemic is an international security issue because of its impact on the armed forces in Africa, and because of the growing social, political, and economic challenges that it is generating for state stability in the worst affected countries. The international community must devote more resources and more sustained efforts towards addressing the global AIDS pandemic.

Autoimmunity refers to the phenomenon whereby an organism or body mounts an immune response against its own tissues. As a medical term, autoimmunity is today used to account for any instance in which the body fails to recognise its own constituents as 'self', an error that results in the paradoxical situation in which self-defense (immunity, protection) manifests as self-harm (pathology). As a result, the very possibility of autoimmunity poses a problem for the notion of immunity and the concept of identity that underpins it: if self-protection can just as readily take the form of self-destruction, then it seems that the very identity of the self, and thus the boundary between self and other, is in question. Conceptually, autoimmunity thus challenges us to think critically about the nature of any sovereign entity or identity, be they human or nonhuman, cells, nations, or other forms of community. This volume reflects and engages with different disciplinary approaches to autoimmunity in the theoretical, medical or posthumanities, social and political theory, and critical science studies. It aims to provide a topical intervention within the current discussion on biopolitical thought and critical posthumanist futures. This book was originally published as a special issue of Parallax.

India ranks third in the number of people living with HIV/AIDS globally. The country has high levels of poverty and inequality, poor healthcare infrastructure, especially away from the metropolitan areas, and a legacy of colonialism that bequeathed laws criminalizing non-heteronormative sexualities. These factors mean that many minority groups do not receive adequate access to preventative and treatment programs. This book explores the HIV/AIDS epidemic in India. Based on research in Tamil Nadu, it presents experiences of those marginalized by their sexuality and/ or gender, their struggles and their triumphs. Based on interviews with male and female sex-workers, men who have sex with men, aravanis (male to female transgenders) and HIV positive women-groups usually not included in the policy-making by Indian government agencies, international donors and international NGOs-the author uses an interdisciplinary approach. The approach highlights the historical and cultural context, while providing contemporary narratives. The book thus presents a deeper, multi-dimensional, understanding of the context of the disease and comprehends the roots of the stigma and discrimination that exacerbate the epidemic. An important study of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, this book will be of interest to researchers in the field of South Asian Studies, Sexuality and Gender Studies, Health Sciences and Public Health.

With the development of effective antiretroviral therapies (ART) in the mid-1990s, HIV became a treatable although serious condition, and people who are adherent to HIV medications can attain normal or near-normal life expectancies. Because of the success of ART, people 50 and older now make up a majority of people with HIV in high-income countries and other places where ART is accessible. The aging of the HIV epidemic is a global trend that is also being observed in low- and middle-income countries, including countries in sub-Saharan Africa, where the greatest number of older people with HIV reside (3.7 million). While globally over half of older adults with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa, we have little information about the circumstances, needs, and resiliencies of this population, which limits our ability to craft effective policy and programmatic responses to aging with HIV in this region. At present, our understanding of HIV and aging is dominated by information from the U.S. and Western Europe, where the epidemiology of HIV and the infrastructure to provide social care are markedly different than in sub-Saharan Africa. Aging with HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa addresses this gap in our knowledge by providing current research and perspectives on a range of health and psychosocial topics concerning these older adults from across this region. This volume provides a unique and timely overview of growing older with HIV in a sub-Saharan African context, covering such topics as epidemiology, health and functioning, and social support, as well as policy and program implications to support those growing older with HIV. There are very few published volumes that address HIV and aging, and this is the first book to consider HIV and aging in sub-Saharan Africa. Most publications in this area focus on HIV and aging in Uganda and South Africa. This volume broadens the scope with contributions from authors working in West Africa, Botswana, and Kenya. The range of topics covered here will be useful to professionals in a range of disciplines including psychology, epidemiology, gerontology, sociology, health care, public health, and social work.

Lucky Lupin is a poignant yet light-hearted story of survival against the odds, based on Charlie Mortimer's life with HIV/Aids during the early years (1984-1996), when there was neither treatment nor cure. Using a combination of good luck, gallows humour, Fray Bentos pies and copious quantities of Solpadeine, Charlie survived not only the illness but the hysteria that accompanied the so-called 'gay plague'. Anyone infected became a social pariah; had the local launderette got word of his illness they wouldn't have washed his sheets but burnt them. Whilst taking full responsibility for the consequences of his behaviour - 'The fact is you don't get AIDS from watching telly' - Charlie initially took to the sofa and prepared for death, but, in time, he found the inner strength required to confront his fatal diagnosis, becoming, among other things, an antiques dealer and contemporary art collector. With blistering and often hilarious candour Charlie also recounts his childhood where he developed a passion for cars, cultivated by his adventurous mother 'Nidnod', his dizzying array of careers and somewhat curious domestic arrangements including the 'adoption' of a bank robber for twelve years. He also confronts head on his experiences of coming to terms with confused sexuality, addiction, epilepsy and clinical depression before finding lasting contentment. Praise for Dear Lupin: 'As well as being the funniest book I've read in ages, it's also extremely touching. A delight then, on every front.' The Spectator 'Very, very funny.' Sunday Times 'Wry, trenchant, often extremely funny, but also charmingly forbearing and forgiving.' Country Life

"Adelman and Frey take advantage of every opportunity to leave their audience with a splendid reading experience that will prompt one to think about community and communication in new and exciting ways. And as it should be, the reader also will not soon forget the echoes of the voices of the ordinary, but remarkable, men and women who inspired the work -- the residents who live and have lived in the fragile community at BH". -- Journal of Health Communication

This book examines the concept of "community", focusing on how communication practices help manage the tensions of creating and sustaining everyday communal life amidst the crisis of human loss. While acknowledging how the contradictory and inconsistent nature of human relationships inevitably affects community, this intimate and compelling text shows how community is created and sustained in concrete communication practices.

The authors explore these ideas at Bonaventure House, an award-winning residential facility for people with AIDS, where the web of social relationships and the demands of a life-threatening illness intersect in complex ways. Facing a life-threatening illness can defy meaningful social connections, but it can also inspire such ties, sometimes in ways that elude us in the course of daily life. By understanding how collective communication practices help residents forge a sense of community out of the fragility and chaos f living together with AIDS, we are able to better understand how communication is inexorably intertwined with the formation of community in other environments.

Based on seven years of ethnographic research including participant-observation, in-depth interviews, and questionnaires, thisbook weaves together narratives and visual images with conceptual analysis to uncover the ongoing oppositional forces of community life, and to show how both mundane and profound communication processes ameliorate these tensions, and thereby sustain this fragile community. Because the average length of stay for a resident is seven months -- in which time he or she moves from being a newcomer to a community member to someone the community remembers -- the text reflects this short, but crystallized life, starting with the day a new resident opens the door to the day he or she passes away.

The writing is very rich -- intimate, engaging, personal, compelling, and vivid. The stories told discuss such deeply personal topics as the dilemmas of romantic relationships in a context fraught with many perils; issues of power, authority, and control that enable and constrain social life; and communicative practices that help residents cope with bereavement over the loss of others as well as their own impending deaths. The text concludes by examining the lessons learned from Bonaventure House about creating and sustaining a health community, and serves as an inspiration for strengthening interpersonal relationships and communities in other environments.

HIV and AIDS have long been problematized in the People's Republic of China as objects of governance in political frameworks and institutions. The state's attitudes towards health programs have, nevertheless, changed significantly during the 21st century. Pilot programs at the beginning of the century, which focused on underground sex workers, have now developed into the roll-out of a nationwide program, with supportive legislation and broadcast media publicity. This book therefore examines China's evolving AIDS response, providing an up to date investigation into the positions and practices of the state. It explains the origins, rationales and implementation of initiatives focused on female sex workers and explores the extension of such initiatives to include other populations identified as key to ending the AIDS epidemic, especially homosexual men and rural-to-urban migrant labourers. Ultimately, through an analysis of the different approaches to the governance of commercial sex and sexual health, Governing HIV in China concludes by considering the challenges raised by China's commitment to the United Nations' vision of ending AIDS as a global health threat by 2030. This book will be useful for students and scholars of Social Policy, Public Health Policy and Chinese Studies.

Carolyn Jones's vivid and life-affirming portraits capture people from all backgrounds -- children and grandmothers, men and women of all races -- living with HIV and AIDS.
It is estimated that over one million people in the United States would test positive for the Human Immune Virus, and many others are already suffering from Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. A common-and harmful-misconception holds that AIDS is an instant death sentence but, in fact, testing positive for HIV does not mean immediate illness. Carolyn Jones has collaborated with George DeSipio, Jr., and Michael Liberatore (co-founders of the project), and the seventy-three people who volunteered to pose for these photographs in an inspiring effort to change the way we think about AIDS. Jones's compelling portraits have the power to profoundly alter perceptions about this disease, and about the way we all live and die. AIDS poses challenging questions that we must each grapple with, whether healthy or not. These captivating pictures illustrate the self-confidence and wisdom of ordinary people coping with an extraordinary fate, facing their mortality, questioning their priorities, and living life to the fullest. Their energy, courage, and dignity in the face of such adversity offer a vital lesson in how to embrace life, day by day. Their faces and their stories are proof that AIDS doesn't look like anyone -- it looks like, and ultimately is, all of us.
Design Industries Foundation for AIDS (DIFFA) is the sole recipient of the royalties from the sale of "Living Proof." For additional information regarding "Living Proof" and the Design Industries Foundation for AIDS, please call DIFFA, (212) 727-3100.

The disproportional loss of individuals to HIV/AIDS in their most productive years raises concerns over the welfare of surviving members of affected families and communities. One consequence of the rapid increase in adult mortality is the rise in the proportion of children who are orphaned. Sub-Saharan Africa, accounts for about 90 percent of these. Mainly due to the staggering toll of HIV/AIDS, research effort has focused on treatment and prevention. Children have received attention primarily in relation to 'mother to child transmission' and paediatric AIDS. These issues are important and compelling but fail to capture the whole story - the unprecedented surge in the number of children made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS. In this book we reflect on the plight of children classified as vulnerable, review interventions implemented to improve their welfare and grapple with the concept of vulnerability as it relates to human rights and the African child.

Table of Contents

Contents: Preface; Introduction. Section One Overview of the Issue: AIDS related vulnerabilities among children in Sub-Saharan Africa: an overview, Lyndsey McMahan, Chiedza Mufunde and Margaret Lombe. Section Two The Living Arrangement of Orphaned and Vulnerable Children in Sub-Saharan Africa: Fostered children in Botswana, Tapologo Maundeni, Naomi Seboni and Ogar Rapinyana; Experiences of children in residential care: the case of Kenya, Protus Lumiti, Alex J. Ochumbo and Nicholas Syano; The living arrangements of vulnerable children in Zambia, Margaret Lombe and Theresa Lungu. Section Three Responding to Orphaned and Vulnerable Children: An Overview of Public and Private Initiatives: Responses to orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC) in Botswana, Naomi Seboni, Tapoplogo Maundeni, Ogar Rapinyana and Mosidi Tseleng Cynthia Mokotedi; Responding to orphaned and vulnerable children in Kenya, Alex Ochumbo, Protus Lumiti, and Nicholas Syano; Responding to orphaned and vulnerable children in Zambia, Theresa Lungu, Chrisann Newransky and Aakanksha Sinha. Section Four Children Speak Out: Children speak out: is anyone listening?, Margaret Lombe and Alex Ochumbo. Section Five Making Children Matter: Vulnerability among children and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Margaret Lombe and Harriet Mabikke; Conclusion: closing thoughts, Margaret Lombe, Harriet Mabikke and Alex Ochumbo. Index.

AIDS and the Ecology of Poverty combines the insights of economics and biology, to explain the spread of HIV/AIDS and delivers a telling critique of AIDS policy. Drawing on a wealth of scientific evidence, Stillwaggon demonstrates that HIV/AIDS cannot be stopped without understanding the ecology of poverty. Her message is optimistic, with pragmatic solutions to the health problems that promote the spread of HIV/AIDS.

AIDS has a unique political history. As fears grew of a global pandemic on the scale of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, AIDS was briefly treated as an issue of high politics in the international arena and generated significant resources for country programmes. That initial commitment is now declining, and if AIDS is to maintain its visibility and contribution to global solidarity, human rights and dignity, its politics will have to evolve to reflect the profound geo-political, economic and social transformations underway today. This volume brings together leading scholars from a variety of disciplines who work at the intersection of politics and HIV. They reflect on the lessons learned from the past thirty years of the politics of AIDS and how political science, writ large, can further contribute to the understanding and practice of political mobilization around AIDS. Through case studies and analysis, new insights into identity politics and social movements in countries as diverse as Brazil, Switzerland, Vietnam and Zambia are offered alongside new approaches to understanding the determinants and incentives which generate political will and commitment. This book was published as a special issue of Contemporary Politics.

When addressing the factors shaping HIV prevention programs in sub-Saharan Africa, it is important to consider the role of family planning programs that preceded the epidemic. In this book, Rachel Sullivan Robinson argues that both globally and locally, those working to prevent HIV borrowed and adapted resources, discourses, and strategies used for family planning. By combining statistical analysis of all sub-Saharan African countries with comparative case studies of Malawi, Nigeria, and Senegal, Robinson also shows that the nature of countries' interactions with the international community, the strength and composition of civil society, and the existence of technocratic leaders influenced variation in responses to HIV. Specifically, historical and existing relationships with outside actors, the nature of nongovernmental organizations, and perceptions of previous interventions strongly structured later health interventions through processes of path dependence and policy feedback. This book will be of great use to scholars and practitioners interested in global health, international development, African studies and political science.

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.

The inability of the medical establishment to effectively curtail the rapid spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa, coupled with the questionable response to HIV/AIDS by the state and the public debates around the issue have all combined to draw attention to the sociological aspects of health and disease and to put them in the public arena. There is also an increasing recognition that health practitioners need to have a better understanding of the social aspects of health and disease. Sociology as a resource of knowledge and a unique analytical and conceptual perspective can be used to understand, to explain and to positively influence the course of the epidemic and our response to it.