Navigating the AIDS Industry: Being Poor and Positive in Tanzania

TY - JOUR

T1 - Navigating the AIDS Industry

T2 - Being Poor and Positive in Tanzania

AU - Boesten, Jelke

PY - 2011/5

Y1 - 2011/5

N2 - This article shows how poor people living with HIV/AIDS in Tanzania navigate a myriad of actors, agencies and organizations to obtain the aid they need to survive. It focuses on community-based organizations which establish networks of care through which people obtain care, treatment and financial support. A case study of a roadside town in Tanzania illustrates that these community-based networks of care — essential to the survival of many — are partly the product of the AIDS industry, which encourages the establishment of community-based organizations and voluntary service delivery rather than more formalized systems of care. Community-based organizations, however, are so poorly supported that they often deploy self-destructive strategies. The need to strategically navigate the AIDS industry creates tension and even conflict among HIV-positive activists, the people they represent and the wider community, which undermines rather than strengthens community-based interventions. Whilst the AIDS industry promises inclusion of HIV-positive people in the response to HIV/AIDS, it succeeds only partially, with the result that it may potentially do more harm than good.

AB - This article shows how poor people living with HIV/AIDS in Tanzania navigate a myriad of actors, agencies and organizations to obtain the aid they need to survive. It focuses on community-based organizations which establish networks of care through which people obtain care, treatment and financial support. A case study of a roadside town in Tanzania illustrates that these community-based networks of care — essential to the survival of many — are partly the product of the AIDS industry, which encourages the establishment of community-based organizations and voluntary service delivery rather than more formalized systems of care. Community-based organizations, however, are so poorly supported that they often deploy self-destructive strategies. The need to strategically navigate the AIDS industry creates tension and even conflict among HIV-positive activists, the people they represent and the wider community, which undermines rather than strengthens community-based interventions. Whilst the AIDS industry promises inclusion of HIV-positive people in the response to HIV/AIDS, it succeeds only partially, with the result that it may potentially do more harm than good.

U2 - 10.1111/j.1467-7660.2011.01713.x

DO - 10.1111/j.1467-7660.2011.01713.x

M3 - Article

SN - 1467-7660

VL - 42

SP - 781

EP - 803

JO - DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE

JF - DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE

IS - 3

ER -