Contents; List of Illustrations; Acknowledgments; Note on Ethnic Names and Languages; Preface; 1. Introduction: Meaning and Structure in the Study of AIDS; 2. Comparing Uganda and South Africa: Sexual Networks, Family Structure, and Property; 3. The Social Determinants of Sexual Network Configuration; 4. The Tightening Chain: Civil Society and Uganda's Response to HIV/AIDS; 5. AIDS in Uganda: Years of Chaos and Recovery; 6. Siliimu as Native Category: AIDS as Local Knowledge in Uganda; 7. The Indigenization of AIDS: Governance and the Political Response in Uganda
8. South Africa's Struggle: The Omission and Commission of Truth about AIDS9. Imagining AIDS: South Africa's Viral Politics; 10. Flows of Sexual Substance: The Sexual Network in South Africa; 11. Preventing AIDS: A New Paradigm for a New Strategy; Notes; References; Index
Summary
This groundbreaking work, with its unique anthropological approach, sheds new light on a central conundrum surrounding AIDS in Africa. Robert J. Thornton explores why HIV prevalence fell during the 1990s in Uganda despite that country's having one of Africa's highest fertility rates, while during the same period HIV prevalence rose in South Africa, the country with Africa's lowest fertility rate. Thornton finds that culturally and socially determined differences in the structure of sexual networksrather than changes in individual behaviorwere responsible for these radical differences in HIV