Cashing in on Shame: How the Popular “Tradition vs. Modernity” Dualism Contributes to the “HIV/AIDS Crisis” in Africa

Abstract

Orthodox descriptions and treatment of Africa's HIV/AIDS crisis are subject to robust controversy among research experts and clinicians who raise questions about the tests used to define the crisis, the statistics used to document the crisis, and the drugs marketed to curtail it. Despite this critical scientific corpus, fanciful misconceptions about chronic illness and mortality in Africa are sustained by ahistorical and apolitical analyses misrepresenting Africans’ contemporary morality, social reality, and public health care needs.