Dr. Wouter Basson, Americans, and Wild Beasts: Men's Conspiracy Theories of HIV/AIDS in the South African Lowveld

Abstract

This article investigates HIV/AIDS as a cosmological problem among Northern Sotho and Tsonga-speakers in the South African lowveld. Based on in-depth interviews with 70 informants (35 men and 35 women) I show how the attribution of blame for HIV/AIDS articulates gendered concerns. I suggest that women blamed men and envious nurses for spreading the virus and that these discourses expressed women's ideological association with the domestic domain. By contrast, men invoked conspiracy theories, blaming translocal agents--such as Dr. Wouter Basson, Americans, soldiers, and governments--for the pandemic. I suggest that these theories are informed by men's humiliating experiences of job losses and deindustrialization in the global labour market. My discussion highlights the need for HIV/AIDS interventions in order to address not only women's oppression but also men's gendered concerns.

Civil Society Leadership in the Struggle for Aids Treatment in South Africa and Uganda

“…This is consistent with ethnographic research by Niehaus and Jonsson (2005) and was borne out in the multivariate models: Africans had substantially greater odds of endorsing conspiracy beliefs in model 1 (OR = 6.771; p < 0.000), but the gender effect turned out not to be statistically insignificant in the non-stratified models. Even so, as shown in models 3 and 4, there are major differences in what factors are associated with AIDS conspiracy beliefs for African men and women.…”

“…But, even a cursory overview of the CAPS data shows that Africans in the sample are much more likely to hold AIDS conspiracy beliefs (19.7% of African respondents scored averages of 'agree' or 'strongly agree' on an index of AIDS conspiracy beliefs while the proportion of non-Africans was only 2.6%) and that men are much more likely to endorse conspiracy beliefs than women (25.8% of African men vs. 14.8% of African women). Niehaus and Jonsson (2005) found that conspiracy accounts in South Africa were strongly gendered. Africans are also more likely to report using condoms than non-Africans at their most recent sexual encounter (64.1% of Africans vs. 35.9% of non-Africans).…”

AIDS Conspiracy Beliefs and Unsafe Sex in Cape Town

“…In the most thorough ethnographic study available on AIDS conspiracy theories amongst Africans in South Africa, Niehaus and Jonsson [2] also found that conspiracy accounts were strongly gendered. They attribute this pattern to African women being focussed on the domestic context where a supportive welfare state provides child support grants, whereas African men are more exposed to international political-economic forces beyond their control and are thus more likely to see their lives as subject to impersonal and malicious forces.…”

“…A significant minority of people in both South Africa and the United States hold conspiracy beliefs about the origin of AIDS, notably that it was deliberately man-made, even with genocidal intent [1,2]. The history of racial oppression and abuse in both countries is important in understanding why these beliefs are especially prevalent among black people.…”

Ways of dying: AIDS care and agency in contemporary urban South Africa

“…Thornton, 2008). Others have initiated projects that subtly engage the agentive concept at arm's length, through considerations of how individuals and communities themselves make sense of the disease or attribute blame to certain agents (Ashforth, 2005;Dilger, 2008;McNeill, 2009;Niehaus, 2005;Robins, 2009;Thomas, 2007Thomas, , 2008. Especially in this last, still emergent literature, the question of how AIDS deaths bear upon and transform the experience of everyday life is beginning to be addressed.…”