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Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines the shifting nature of contemporary epidemiological classifications in the HIV/AIDS epidemic. It first looks at assumptions that guide a discourse of vulnerability and circulate around risk categories. It then examines the underlying emphasis in public health on the popular frame of “vulnerable women” who acquire HIV through heterosexual transmission. Drawing on work on gender, sexuality, and intersectionality, the paper asks why a discourse of vulnerability is infused into discussions of heterosexually‐active women's HIV risks but not those pertaining to heterosexually‐active men's. The paper then moves to current surveillance categories that are hierarchically and differentially applied to women's and men's risks in the HIV epidemic. Here, the focus is on the way in which contemporary classifications allow for the emergence of the vulnerable heterosexually‐active woman while simultaneously constituting lack of fathomability concerning bisexual and lesbian transmission risk. Lastly, theories of intersectionality, are used to examine current research on woman‐to‐woman transmission, and to suggest future more productive options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of sexual risk behaviour in the context of HIV/AIDS often utilize theories of risk which are predicated on the idea of the rational actor making choices, and thus operate with a strong notion of the autonomous individual. The underlying assumption is that a well-informed individual would strive to reduce risk and therefore choose not to engage in risky behaviour in sexual encounters. Drawing on longitudinal fieldwork in Arusha town and the surrounding districts in northern Tanzania, this paper explores how people draw on a complexity of knowledge and experience when they try to reduce the likelihood of contracting HIV. It shows how the embeddedness of social relationships, and the constraints of culture restrict the possible range of options, particularly for women. The paper examines the paired concepts of risk and trust, arguing that trust in a sexual relationship is gendered in particular ways. Gender hierarchies often place women in a subordinate position to men as a result of which women have to make compromises which put their health at risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper argues that the relationship between homophobia and HIV/AIDS is not as direct as is often assumed. This argument is pursued through an examination of the situation of gay men in Australia, a country where the HIV epidemic is largely confined to gay men, and Bangladesh, a country and culture where sex between men does not conform to categories of human sexuality privileged in Western theory. Both of these countries reveal something different about cultures of sex between men, which provides a counterpoint to the often compelling and usually pervasive accounts of HIV-related discrimination that are derived particularly from North America. The paper concludes with a plea that as efforts are geared up to fight the HIV pandemic in Asia and the Pacific, researchers, planners and practitioners become more critical of the conceptual tools they rely on in thinking about HIV/AIDS and human sexual activity, so that it is possible to mobilize (and do less damage to) local cultures of sexuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent advances in treatment have improved the health of many people living with HIV/AIDS. The research described in this paper shows that the changing context of care is also impacting significantly on people who provide services. In this paper, we explore both perspectives by comparing recent service provider data with that derived from research involving people living with HIV/AIDS. We explore four themes: (1) hope and optimism; (2) changing context, roles and identities; (3) changing relationships; and (4) quality of life. Treatment advances and a new focus on living has altered the context of working with people living with HIV/AIDS and challenges health professionals to find new meanings and relationships within that context. Study findings have implications for the wider health care context and the changing roles and power balances within this arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one by Sheri Bastien on the importance of interpersonal communication in AIDS prevention, one by Chi-Chi Undie and collogues on HIV-positive persons in Kenya, and one by Kristin Mmari and colleagues on risk factors related to unsafe activities among orphaned and non-orphaned people in Tanzania.

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper reports on a study of the relationship of homophobia to HIV/AIDS-related stigma in Jamaica. Ethnography, key informant interviews and focus groups were used to gather data from a sample of 33 male and female adults during the summer of 2003. The sample included health and social service providers, HIV positive men and women, and men and women with same sex partners in urban and rural Jamaica. A strong and consistent relationship between homophobia and HIV/AIDS-related stigma was reported, but the relationship varied according to geographic location, social class, gender, and skin colour (complexion)—to the extent that this coincided with class. Stigma against people living with HIV/AIDS and homosexuality was implicated in low levels of use of HIV testing, treatment and care services and the reluctance of HIV positive people to reveal their serostatus to their sexual partners. Data reveal a pressing need for anti-stigma measures for both homophobia and HIV/AIDS, and for training for health and human service professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of female sexuality in Africa tend to adopt an instrumental approach, many times problematizing sexual conduct in relation to HIV infection and/or reproduction. This study aimed to explore sexuality as a relational concept. Using interviews and participant observation, the paper shows how sexuality becomes a point of self-identification for young professional women in Nairobi between 20 and 30 years-old. These women form a group who implicitly and explicitly criticize conventional gender roles through the overt pursuit of sexual pleasure as recognition of their womanhood. This aspect of the feminine sense of self is at odds with normative notions of femininity. To avoid criticism for being ‘un-proper’, women adopt a deferential attitude towards men. The focus on upwardly mobile professional women and their experiments with new types of heterosexual relations in dating provides insight into both sexuality and gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the intellectual and social origins of racialist homophobia in contemporary Zimbabwean political discourse, exemplified by President Robert Mugabe's anti-homosexual speeches since the mid-1990s. It challenges the notions that such homophobia is either essential to African patriarchy or simple political opportunism. Tracing overt expressions of intolerance towards male-male sexuality back to the colonial period, it focuses on ways in which notions of appropriate, respectable, exclusive heterosexuality within the ‘cowboy’ culture of White Southern Rhodesia trickled into, or were interpreted in, the African nationalist movement. It concludes that understanding this history could improve efforts to address concerns around sexual health in Zimbabwe and elsewhere in the region, particularly silences around same-sex sexuality in HIV/AIDS education and prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Nigeria, popular understandings of HIV/AIDS and individual risk assessment and behaviour unfold within an interpretative grid that draws on a religious moral framework. This paper reports results from a two-year study of HIV/AIDS-related beliefs and behaviour among adolescent and young adult rural-urban migrants in two Nigerian cities. The young people in the study originate from south-eastern Nigeria; they almost uniformly identify themselves as Christian; and they commonly situate their understandings and explain their behaviours in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in terms of religion, especially in relation to the increasingly popular and dominant religious discourses of evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity. Findings suggest that popular religious interpretations of HIV risk pose real dangers, leading many young migrants to imagine themselves as at little or no risk, and contributing to inconsistent protective practices. The study highlights the limitations of intervention strategies that ignore the extent to which religion, health, sexuality and morality intersect in people's everyday lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been little research into how the diverse cultures within Papua New Guinea interpret, represent and understand the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Using qualitative ethnographic research, this study examines how incoming ideas about AIDS relate to the existing cultural frameworks of a rural Christian community. Although L, elet respondents in New Ireland have recourse to indigenous conceptions, apocalyptic Christianity is the most influential framework in their understanding of AIDS. Two interconnected issues are examined: how the epidemic is understood in apocalyptic terms, and how this affects practical approach to the disease. The paper indicates a need for more research into the stances taken by different Christian groups towards HIV/AIDS. This is especially important in the Pacific, where Christianity is the dominant worldview and where there has been a rapid spread of apocalyptic forms of Christianity, which may have particularly significant consequences for the epidemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the obstacles and opportunities experienced by a diverse group of persons living with HIV and AIDS in accessing medical and social services. A social networks approach is used to analyse data from 56 in-depth interviews conducted with persons living with HIV and AIDS in Orange County, California. From this analysis, the service pathways by White/Caucasian gay men, Latina/Hispanic women who speak only Spanish, and injecting drug users of diverse ethnicities are used to illustrate the influence of race/ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation on service access. Implications for service provision and future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The family, household and community have often been identified as having a crucial role to play in HIV and AIDS-related care in developing countries. Yet few studies have sought to examine the limits to the support that such institutions can provide. This paper describes findings from a study of the care and support offered to people living with HIV and AIDS in Chiang Mai province, an area of Thailand severely affected by the epidemic. Following an initial Rapid Assessment Process (RAP), data was collected from in-depth household and individual interviews, focus group discussions and participant observation in two village communities. A number of recurrent themes emerge from the data: local beliefs and practices as factors mediating family and community responses; the impact of recent economic and social change on the social organisation of family and village life (including the role of formal village leaders and the growth of sex work); the complex interface between traditional and modern systems of care and support; differences between rich and poor in access to, and use of, health services; and the unequal burden of responsibility shouldered by women as care givers. The implications of these findings for the future provision of health care and support in this part of Thailand are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young people are among those most vulnerable to HIV/AIDS in South Africa. To date, however, there has been a shortage of fictional narratives appropriate to their needs, and addressing issues of HIV/AIDS. Accessibility to literature is of concern for a variety of reasons, ranging from low levels of literacy among many Black students to the non- availability of books in many schools. This paper aims to extend notions of the meanings of literacy within the context of HIV/AIDS prevention amongst South African youth. It examines the significance of such literacy both to life itself and to what counts as literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)