AEGIS ECAS 2007 - View abstract

Panel	15. Reconfiguring the Religion-HIV/AIDS connection: challenges and opportunities
Paper ID	165
Author(s)	Shoko, Tabona
Paper	View paper (PDF)
Abstract	This paper explores the issue of ‘Religion, Land HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe’. Zimbabwe’s politics of the land has appropriated religious themes in political discourse but also marginalized several groups such as women, children, and farm workers and rendered them vulnerable to HIV/AIDS. In particular Operation Murambatsvina that swept across the country and demolished homes and informal business structures displaced several people and rendered them homeless. This has sparked humanitarian crisis that calls for international intervention. The paper will seek to capitalize upon a growing interest on issues such as how religion matters to marginalized communities and how culture enables the process of self-empowerment among marginalized communities. Such paper will explore the intricate connection between indigenous religion, land, HIV/AIDS and some such related issues of human rights, morality and gender, using an interdisciplinary approach. The paper seeks to argue that the land reform policy not only undermined human rights and gender principles of equality, but also exposed new settlers and populace to fatal diseases such as HIV/AIDS. The paper seeks to explore new dimensions and nuances of the land reform by putting religion, land and HIV/AIDS at centre stage. The religious dimension so far is not clearly articulate yet indigenous religion has played a significant role during the liberation struggles and post independent Africa. Previous scholars have not paid attention to the religious factor. The land reform has also been viewed in the context of moral and human rights discourse. Critics have raised concerns about the imbalance of resettled people versus un-resettled ‘landless’ ones. Most of the studies have not adequately articulated issues of gender and class pertaining to the beneficiaries and the unsuccessful applicants. Above all the politics of land in Zimbabwe appears to have created marginal classes that have been rendered homeless and exposed to HIV/AIDS. The government has been criticised that they unleashed the programme not to achieve a legitimate goal but to achieve political interests. So far nothing has been produced on indigenous religion, land and HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe. This paper therefore intends to fill this gap. Whilst previous contributions in social and political sciences are acknowledged, literature is yet to appear on the effects of the Fast Track land reform program in Zimbabwe. The environmental health impact on resettled new farmers and displaced farm workers and their facilities of sanitation and hygiene need examination. Lack of systematic studies on the relationship between religion, land and HIV/AIDS creates a vacuum in Zimbabwe’s historiography that calls for exploration. The paper adopts an eclectic approach that include anthropology, sociology, phenomenology and historical. It will be based primarily on research material sourced through archives, library and empirical field research

Religion, Land and HIV/AIDS