A Plague of Paradoxes
AIDS, Culture, and Demography in Northern Tanzania
9780226748863
9780226748856
A Plague of Paradoxes
AIDS, Culture, and Demography in Northern Tanzania
Since recording its first AIDS cases in 1983, Tanzania has reported nearly 90,000 more to the World Health Organization—more than any other country in Africa. As AIDS spread, the devastating syndrome came to be known simply as ugonjwa huo: "that disease."
The AIDS epidemic has forced Africans to reflect upon the meaning of traditional ideas and practices related to sexuality and fertility, and upon modernity and biomedicine. In A Plague of Paradoxes, anthropologist Philip Setel observes Tanzania’s Chagga people and their attempts to cope with and understand AIDS—the latest in a series of crises over which they feel they have little, if any, control.
Timely and well-researched, A Plague of Paradoxes is an extended case study of the most serious epidemic of the twentieth century and the cultural circumstances out of which it emerged. It is a unique book that brings together anthropology, demography, and epidemiology to explain how a particular community in Africa experiences AIDS.
The AIDS epidemic has forced Africans to reflect upon the meaning of traditional ideas and practices related to sexuality and fertility, and upon modernity and biomedicine. In A Plague of Paradoxes, anthropologist Philip Setel observes Tanzania’s Chagga people and their attempts to cope with and understand AIDS—the latest in a series of crises over which they feel they have little, if any, control.
Timely and well-researched, A Plague of Paradoxes is an extended case study of the most serious epidemic of the twentieth century and the cultural circumstances out of which it emerged. It is a unique book that brings together anthropology, demography, and epidemiology to explain how a particular community in Africa experiences AIDS.
318 pages | 2 maps, 6 line drawings, 11 tables | 6 x 9 | © 1999
Worlds of Desire: The Chicago Series on Sexuality, Gender, and Culture
History: African History
Sociology: Demography and Human Ecology, Medical Sociology
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface and Acknowledgments
1. "Hey, Listen!"
2. Not a Promised Land: Historical Instabilities in Social Reproduction
3. Population, Men, and Movement: (M)oral Demographies of Desire and Risk
4. Personhood and the Pragmatics of Desire
5. The "Acquired Income Deficiency Syndrome"
6. An Epidemic of Clarity, a Disease of Confusion: Profession and Popular Epidemiologies of AIDS
7. Conclusions without Closure
Notes
References
Index
Preface and Acknowledgments
1. "Hey, Listen!"
2. Not a Promised Land: Historical Instabilities in Social Reproduction
3. Population, Men, and Movement: (M)oral Demographies of Desire and Risk
4. Personhood and the Pragmatics of Desire
5. The "Acquired Income Deficiency Syndrome"
6. An Epidemic of Clarity, a Disease of Confusion: Profession and Popular Epidemiologies of AIDS
7. Conclusions without Closure
Notes
References
Index