The Priest's Soldiers: HIV Therapies, Health Identities, and Forced Encampment in Northern Uganda

Abstract

In this article, I analyze how antiretroviral therapy and associated HIV support programs engendered HIV-based health identities in displacement camps in conflict-affected northern Uganda. Drawing on multisited ethnographic fieldwork I conducted between 2006 and 2009, I argue that these health identities were intimately tied to the congested physical and social conditions of the displacement camp. I argue, too, that the interactions between therapeutic practices and biosociality, along with the social observation and labeling of people with HIV/AIDS, produced new health identities. Furthermore, the labels applied to people with HIV—and adopted by them—reflected a local repertoire of meanings associating HIV/AIDS with militarism, Christian missions, camp life, and humanitarianism: thus people living with HIV/AIDS were labeled ‘the priest's soldiers.’

Keywords:

• antiretrovirals
• biosociality
• displacement
• HIV/AIDS
• northern Uganda
• stigma

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The writing of this article was made possible by the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Elements of this article have appeared previously in Centre for Social Science Research Working Paper No. 267, University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Notes

http://www.internaldisplacement.org/idmc/website/countries.nsf/(httpEnvelopes)/2439C2AC21E16365C125719C004177C7?OpenDocument, accessed November 28, 2011.

Gulu (formerly including Amuru), Kitgum, Apac (formerly including Oyam), Lira (formerly including Amolatar and Dokolo), and Pader districts.

Gulu, Amuru, Kitgum, Pader, Apac, Oyam, Lira, Amolatar, and Dokolo districts.

Interview with Louisa Seferis, Associazione Volontari peril Servizio Internazionale (AVSI) camp management coordinator, Gulu Town, August 18, 2008.

Data from Norwegian Refugee Council camp management, Pabbo, August 25, 2008.

The Women and Children First Organization recorded 271 members with HIV/AIDS in Pabbo in 2008.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon

MATTHEW WILHELM-SOLOMON is a postdoctoral research fellow at the African Centre for Migration and Society based at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. He completed his doctorate in development studies at the University of Oxford in 2011.