1. Structure and agency in long-distance truck drivers’ lived experiences of condom use for HIV prevention
- Author
-
Shaunak Sastry
- Subjects
Safe Sex ,Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice ,Economic growth ,Health (social science) ,Behavior change communication ,Sexual Behavior ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Discourse analysis ,Psychological intervention ,India ,HIV Infections ,Transportation ,law.invention ,Condoms ,Interviews as Topic ,03 medical and health sciences ,Risk-Taking ,0302 clinical medicine ,Promotion (rank) ,Condom ,law ,Humans ,030212 general & internal medicine ,Health communication ,Anthropology, Cultural ,media_common ,030505 public health ,business.industry ,Behavior change ,Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health ,virus diseases ,Public relations ,Structure and agency ,Motor Vehicles ,0305 other medical science ,business ,Psychology - Abstract
Condom promotion has emerged as a mainstay of targeted HIV prevention interventions in India, with its emphasis on individual behaviour change and personal responsibility. However, such approaches often do not account for marginalised populations' structural vulnerability to HIV, arising from social, economic and political factors in the lived environment. In this paper, I use a critical health communication framework to analyse how structure and agency interact in influencing condom use among long-distance truck drivers in India. Drawing on an abductive discourse analysis of condom-use discourses among truckers and peer educators in two Indian cities, findings reveal that while truckers understand the biomedical logic of condoms as barriers, they also express anxiety about condom breakage and experience structural barriers to condom use. The paper concludes by calling for greater attention to structural vulnerabilities in future HIV prevention efforts with truck drivers.
- Published
- 2015
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