Shifting Paradigms and the Politics of AIDS in Zambia

Abstract

Abstract:This article explores how international discourses on AIDS prevention have been incorporated into national-level programs that promote particular lifestyle and livelihood strategies in Zambia, particularly within the realms of wife inheritance, widowhood, and marriage. In response, Zambian communities have recast these narratives to inform local political economies, identities, and struggles for power. Often community and national-level efforts work at odds with each other, as each seeks to legitimize various moralities and codes of behavior. At the local level actors choose the strategies that most effectively mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS and also enhance their overall well-being.

Life With Hiv: ‘Stigma’ and Hope in Malawi's Era of Arvs

“… 32 Cf. Frank (2009) on the precarious position of young urban widows in Zambia; Whyte's (2005) depictions of the ambiguities of women's belonging in patrilineal Eastern Uganda; and Dilger's work (2008, 2010) in a patrilineal area of rural Tanzania. …”