Ida Susser

Culture, sexuality, and women's agency in the prevention of HIV/AIDS in southern Africa.

Using an ethnographic approach, the authors explored the awareness among women in southern Africa of the HIV epidemic and the methods they might use to protect themselves from the virus. The research, conducted from 1992 through 1999, focused specifically on heterosexual transmission in 5 sites that were selected to reflect urban and rural experiences, various populations, and economic and political opportunities for women at different historical moments over the course of the HIV epidemic. The authors found that the female condom and other woman-controlled methods are regarded as culturally appropriate among many men and women in southern Africa and are crucial to the future of HIV/AIDS prevention. The data reported in this article demonstrate that cultural acceptability for such methods among women varies along different axes, both over time and among different populations. For this reason, local circumstances need to be taken into account. Given that women have been clearly asking for protective methods they can use, however, political and economic concerns, combined with historically powerful patterns of gender discrimination and neglect of womens sexuality, must be viewed as the main obstacles to the development and distribution of methods women can control.

Norman Street : poverty and politics in an urban neighborhood

Introduction to the Updated Edition 1. Introduction 2. A Changing Neighborhood 3. A Changing Workplace and Its Consequences 4. The Welfare System: Interaction Between Officials and Clients 5. The Welfare System: Regulations and the Life of a Welfare Recipient 6. Landlord-Tenant Relations 7. Cooperation and Conflict in a Block Association 8. Making Things Work 9. Kinship, Friendship, and Support 10. Save the Firehouse! 11. The Sources of Political Control 12. Conclusion Bibliography Index Index of Pseudonyms

WOMEN IN THE TIME OF AIDS: BARRIERS, BARGAINS, AND BENEFITS

We comment here on the implications of new HIV prevention technologies (physical and chemical barriers) for womens health and womens rights. Four relevant themes are selected that have emerged in the social and behavioral science literature: structural factors (global and national) limiting the availability of female condoms, control and empowerment with female-initiated HIV prevention technologies, covert use of female-initiated HIV prevention technologies, and male partners as part of the bargain for barriers. There is now a rich and diverse literature on all of these issues, relevant and informative (much is addressed in this issue), which we draw together in this commentary. Discussion of these themes suggests guidelines for policy, research, and action. First, the misconceptions, biases, and prejudices of global and national leaders, including donors, necessitate that we persevere in presenting data to them and engaging them in discussion. Second, we need to support women within their local social contexts to negotiate for their rights, balancing pragmatic approaches to their partners in their initiation of protection, and applying according to each situation as appropriate, a continuum from discretion and clandestine use to deception. Third, men have to be brought in as active participants, and their positive and negative experiences and interests inserted into practices and policies.

Creating Family Forms The exclusion of men and teenage boys from families in the New York City shelter system, 1987-91

As discussed in the introduction to this issue, the term ’underclass’ (Wilson, 1987; Ricketts and Sawhill, 1988) and its relationship to the 1960s concept of ’culture of poverty’ has been a source of controversy (Jones, Maxwell, this issue). William Julius Wilson, a widely recognized sociologist, at first used the term, but has since abandoned ’underclass’ and now refers to the ’urban poor’. However, we still need to reconceptualize the urban poor, in order to avoid implying an illusory separation between poor and not poor. An emphasis on separateness obscures rather than illuminates analysis of the dynamic processes of capitalism (Vincent, this issue). Whereas terms such as ’underclass’ emphasize the social isolation of poor people, they neglect the institutional connections that bind members

The Anthropologist as Social Critic

From early in the epidemic, AIDS has been an area where anthropologists have fought for an activist perspective. Here, I examine social justice and ethical issues that have been raised internationally with respect to AIDS research. I explore the political dilemmas, the real, much‐discussed crisis of legitimacy for anthropologists in societies where they are not citizens, and the extent to which anthropologists have the obligation or the right to voice criticism. Drawing on ethnographic research in southern Africa since 1992, I discuss the interface of research with advocacy and developing links with feminist and human rights groups. Interpreting and helping to reinforce the demands of grassroots leadership informed by cutting‐edge progressive scientists is an emerging area where anthropologists may find a legitimate public voice for social criticism.

The Flexible Woman Regendering labor in the informational society

In the US, as more poor women must work to support their house holds, and state support for women/caregivers is consistently reduced, we find an increase in violence and domestic conflict and the abandonment and neglect of children. The 1996 welfare laws exacerbate this situation as they force more poor women into the low-paid or unpaid labor force, to the further cost of poor children. These new laws reflect and reinforce a shift in what was viewed by the welfare state as legitimate dependence for mothers and children. It is no longer sufficient, if it ever was, to talk of male or female domination or subordination among poor people in the United States. In the 1990s, arenas of power for men are contradicted by other arenas of power or access to resources from the state for women. Thus in spite of the utility of analyses that dealt with the experiences of men and women separately, only an analysis that portrays the integral inter dependencies of the two interlocking/conflicting gender hierarchies in terms of class, poverty and state regulations can elucidate the parameters of the new poverty and the violence it generates.

Union Carbide and the community surrounding it: the case of a community in Puerto Rico

Based on fieldwork in Puerto Rico, this article examines the views on health hazards of residents in a semi-rural community in relation to the influx of industrial development since the early 1970s. It is suggested that “folk” terminology and particular aspects of Puerto Rican culture are less significant in this instance than many studies in medical anthropology suggest. The focus is on the emergence of a protest movement concerned with health problems which community residents and workers attribute to a nearby Union Carbide factory. Residents of El Ingenio, Yabucoa, Puerto Rico, have brought a law suit against Union Carbide and, the management of the plant has attempted to dispel the conflict. The article argues that health concerns of residents, industrial workers, and plant management cannot be interpreted without taking into account problems of unemployment, political affiliations, and company policies and their impact over time.

Sex, drugs and videotape: The prevention of AIDS in a New York City shelter for homeless men

This paper documents a process of social change through participant observation. During the course of research a group response was facilitated by a team of residents, staff and researchers. The social context, a shelter for homeless men in New York City, will be presented first, emphasizing those aspects of resident living that are germane to HIV transmission. Next, we describe the group response, the creation of a video. This activity gave numerous insights to the investigators into how the men perceived the homeless state and something of their relationships to others within and outside the institutions. In particular, their views on women and sex were expressed in the video. The insights gained by the men and the investigators are analyzed in terms of a self-help strategy which was effective in conveying information about HIV transmission and prevention.

Sexual Negotiations in Relation to Political Mobilization: The Prevention of HIV in a Comparative Context

Based on ethnographic research in different sites of the global economy, in New York City, Puerto Rico, and South Africa, this paper examines the ways in which women, confronted with the spread of HIV/AIDS, describe their sexual negotiations with men. In each situation, women are found to adopt different strategies for prevention in relation to their level and forms of political mobilization. The research documents the dual role of the U.S. media both in providing information for populations around the world and in perpetuating misconceptions and cultural stereotypes about the spread of HIV/AIDS and womens sexuality. Overall, the comparative data overturns stereotypes of cultural invariability with respect to womens sexuality and demonstrates womens willingness to modify their sexual behavior to reduce the threat of infection from HIV.

Can further placebo-controlled trials of antiretroviral drugs to prevent sexual transmission of HIV be justified?

This article focuses on the continual placebo-controlled trials in women to assess the efficacy and safety of antiretroviral drugs despite the results that have shown that the antiretroviral drugs prevent sexual transmission of HIV. The authors state their belief that to undertake more placebo-controlled trials would be short-sighted and unethical and to delay implementation would cost the lives of the women whom the drugs are intended to benefit. They conclude that a broader perspective of study design and of the assessment of scientific evidence than presently exists would provide a constructive way forward to learn how best to implement new interventions to improve public health.