Contestations Over Culture in a Time of AIDS in Malawi

The Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) is a leading research and teaching centre with an international reputation for high quality applied research and critical scholarship. PLAAS was founded in 1995 as a specialist unit in the School of Government, in the Economic and Management Sciences Faculty at the University of the Western Cape.

PLAAS is hosting a seminar titled ‘Contestations Over Culture in a Time of AIDS in Malawi’ on 19 April 2011 in Bellville, Cape Town.

In Malawi, the distress and unease caused by rising numbers of deaths and chronic illness due to HIV infection have led people to search for explanations.

In this seminar Dr Pauline Peters, Senior Research Fellow in the Center for International Development at Harvard University and currently a Fellow at the Stellenbosch University Institute for Advanced Studies, will describe two particular ‘turns to culture’. Zomba villagers over two decades have come  to link AIDS with kanyera, an indigenous illness syndrome. In contrast, the public media, government and donors blame ‘promiscuity’ and ‘cultural practices’ for HIV infection.

The resulting stigmatisation causes people to avoid naming AIDS, and both turns to culture tend to link blame and stigma to women.

Time: 14h00 to 15h30

To attend, register your interest with rpointer@uwc.ac.za.

For more information, refer to www.plaas.org.za/newsevents/seminar-contestations-over-culture-in-a-time-of-aids-in-malawi.

For more about PLAAS, refer to www.plaas.org.za.