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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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Intersection between Religion and HIV/AIDS in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Some Contradictions and Paradoxes
| Panel |
15. Reconfiguring the Religion-HIV/AIDS connection: challenges and opportunities
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| Paper ID | 348 |
| Author(s) |
Zenebe, Mulumebet
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | The AIDS epidemic has been recognized as the most pressing national health problem in Ethiopia. Studies have proven that the pandemic continues to expand at an alarming speed throughout the country. Ethiopia is a highly religious and traditional society. Hence, religious and traditional institutions play a vital role in influencing the people's modes of life including their sexual behaviour. I would argue that prevention programs in Addis Ababa were not producing sufficient results because they were not based on the contextual issues which construct the HIV/AIDS discourse.
The major objective of the study was to explore how the dominant HIV/AIDS discourse intersects with religion. The present study is located within a social constructionist framework. This framework emphasizes on the contexts within which sexual practices occur, and on the complex relations between meanings and power in the constitution of sexual experience. Thirty residents of Lideta Kifle Ketema of Addis Ababa were selected for interview to see how the dominant HIV/AIDS discourse was negotiated by ordinary citizens, not members of a certain group. The purpose of selecting men and women from different age, marital status, educational and work experience was to include a variety of responses.
Though the biomedical explanation of HIV/AIDS has a wide circulation in Ethiopia, there are other forms of knowledge that are used by the public to understand the epidemic. The study found out that HIV/AIDS intersects with a host of other factors, high among which are religion, gender, sexuality and the traditional patterns of life that shape culture. Religion was found to be very influential in organizing people’s lives and shaping belief systems in Ethiopia. It also plays a significant role in constituting the HIV/AIDS discourse. The study recommends that HIV/AIDS prevention programs should be based on understanding the distinctive characteristics of the people’s sexual cultures shaped by relations of power, by history, and by differentiated traditions within the particular society.
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