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Book Cover
E-book
Author Benton, Adia, 1977- author.

Title HIV exceptionalism : development through disease in Sierra Leone / Adia Benton
Published Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 2015
©2015

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Description 1 online resource
Series Quadrant Book
Contents Mapping the post/civil war HIV terrain -- Exceptional life -- Disclosure and the imperative to talk -- Imaging the positive life -- For love of country
Summary In 2002, Sierra Leone emerged from a decadelong civil war. Seeking international attention and development aid, its government faced a dilemma. Though devastated by conflict, Sierra Leone had a low prevalence of HIV. However, like most African countries, it stood to benefit from a large influx of foreign funds specifically targeted at HIV/AIDS prevention and care. What Adia Benton chronicles in this ethnographically rich and often moving book is how one war-ravaged nation reoriented itself as a country suffering from HIV at the expense of other, more pressing health concerns. During her fieldwork in the capital, Freetown, a city of one million people, at least thirty NGOs administered internationally funded programs that included HIV/AIDS prevention and care. Benton probes why HIV exceptionalism-the idea that HIV is an exceptional disease requiring an exceptional response-continues to guide approaches to the epidemic worldwide and especially in Africa, even in low-prevalence settings. In the fourth decade since the emergence of HIV/AIDS, many today are questioning whether the effort and money spent on this health crisis has in fact helped or exacerbated the problem. HIV Exceptionalism does this and more, asking, what are the unanticipated consequences that HIV/AIDS development programs engender?
Notes "Sponsored by Quadrant's Health and Society group (advisory board: Susan Craddock, Jennifer Gunn, Alex Rothman, and Karen-Sue Taussig), and by the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota."
"A different version of chapter 2 was previously published as "Exceptional Suffering?: Enumeration and Vernacular Accounting in the HIV-Positive Experience," Medical Anthropology 31, no. 4 (July 2012): 310-328; Medical Anthropology is available online at http://www.informaworld.com."
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Print version record
Subject HIV-positive persons -- Care -- Government policy -- Sierra Leone
AIDS (Disease) -- Government policy -- Sierra Leone
Health facilities -- Sierra Leone -- Finance
Federal aid to health facilities -- Sierra Leone
Public health -- Anthropological aspects -- Sierra Leone
HIV Infections -- prevention & control
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Public Policy -- Social Security.
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Public Policy -- Social Services & Welfare.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Anthropology -- Cultural.
AIDS (Disease) -- Government policy
Federal aid to health facilities
Health facilities -- Finance
HIV-positive persons -- Care -- Government policy
Public health -- Anthropological aspects
Aids
Gesundheitswesen
Gesellschaft
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781452943848
1452943842