14th International AIDS Conference Barcelona, Spain - July 7-12, 2002

Int Conf AIDS 2002 Jul 7-12; 14:(abstract no. ThOrE1502)

Coutinho L
University of Delhi, New Delhi, India

BACKGROUND: This research paper focuses on a question of lies and truths within the discourse of health and illness as has emerged during my research on HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns. Health education materials may be read as narratives, which attempt to give particular meaning to state, community and individual experience of HIV/AIDS. The paper attempts to understand the inter-relations between state, community and individual in relation to the AIDS epidemic through these iconic and textual narratives that are interwoven with fictions, half-truths and lies.

METHODS: Based in anthropological theory these narratives have been critically examined as objects which circulate in the public domain and hence constitute and are constituted by public discourse. The narratives of the state, community and individual in relation to issues of health and illness are not distinct from each other, but are enmeshed within the discourse and practices of each other. Hence, the paper traces the discursive formations that inform and that are informed by each other.

RESULTS: The fictions and lies of the state as evident in HIV awareness campaigns are produced through a particular set of practices of health bureaucracies. Social and cultural processes mediate the transformation of state perception of risk, to community and finally individually perceived risk. Thus the medico-scientific and epidemiological category of risk is negotiated by various social factors.

CONCLUSION: These narratives point towards state polices and its relationship with the body politic. The state's fictions and lies inform the community and individual meaning-giving strategies, in as much as their narratives influence those of the state. Hence, an individual or collective fiction is not only an engagement with the particular health issue, but with the issue in its dispersion over several sites, including the practices of the state, community and individual.

020707
ThOrE1502

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