A Tale of Two “Cultures”: HIV Risk Narratives in South Africa

Abstract

There has been a tendency for many researchers and health professionals examining HIV transmission in South Africa to focus on explanations that specifically implicate culture as a primary vector affecting the prevalence of high-risk sexual behavior, such as multiple partners, unprotected sex, and dry sex. In contrast, the residents of Orange Farm, a former informal settlement south of Soweto, portray culture as seldom, if ever, motivating actions that are associated with HIV transmission or prevention in the community. Comparing and contrasting these differing conceptions, we comment critically on the use of ideas regarding culture in explanations addressing the HIV/AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa.

Key Words:

• culture
• HIV/AIDS
• South Africa

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research was funded by the Microbicide Development Programme of the British Medical Research Council. Research assistance was provided by Mdu Mntambo, Elisa Shikwane, Sello Seoka, and Florence Mathebula of the Reproductive Health and HIV Research Unit.

Notes

Ethical permission to conduct the study was granted by the University of the Witwatersrand Committee on Research Ethics (Medical).

Fourteen of the focus groups were with community residents not participating in the trial.

In SeSotho and IsiZulu the words Setso and Insintu were respectively translated into English as culture.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eirik Saethre

EIRIK SAETHRE is an Assistant Professor at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa. His research examines responses to disease, medical intervention, and pharmaceuticals in urban South Africa and remote Aboriginal Australia.

Jonathan Stadler

JONATHAN STADLER is a senior researcher at the Reproductive Health and HIV Research Unit, Witwatersrand University. His research focuses on the ethnography of HIV/AIDS in rural and urban South Africa, and the social life of clinical prevention trials, specifically microbicides.