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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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‘The disease of immorality’: understanding Aids as a sign of the times in Nairobi
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15. Reconfiguring the Religion-HIV/AIDS connection: challenges and opportunities
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| Paper ID | 639 |
| Author(s) |
Spronk, Rachel
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | Aids, like many other diseases, is not merely an illness of a diseased body, it also has profound social implications: Aids is an awful disease, as well as a source of (moral) fear. These realities are interrelated and both have an impact on the meanings of Aids in dominant discourses. From the beginning of the epidemic, Aids became implicated in different social meanings beyond health matters. The understanding of Aids as a disease of ‘immorality’ has become a key concept and has gained a dominant position in public debates, demonstrating how Aids has come to be understood as a sign of the times by many people. In this paper I intend to provide a preliminary mapping and contextualisation of the different ways in which Aids is spoken about in Christian religious discourse, which presents Aids as the result of the neglect of proper morals that has led to social chaos and general ‘immorality’. The religious discourse has become, for various reasons, a major source of information on Aids in Kenya and, as a result, Christian institutions have become an unmistakable pathway for HIV prevention and HIV/Aids care. |
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