Quentin Gausset

The ambivalence of stigma and the double-edged sword of HIV/AIDS intervention in Burkina Faso.

This article analyses the causes of HIV stigmatisation in Burkina Faso as perceived by people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) and people working in AIDS-related Community Based Organisations (CBOs). Stigmatisation continues to be a pressing issue when dealing with HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. The article is based on direct observation of HIV-related practices within 20 CBOs in Burkina Faso, as well as semi-structured interviews or focus group discussions with 72 PLHIV and 90 professionals and volunteers working in CBOs. PLHIV were chosen by convenience sampling among the persons who accessed CBO services and were interviewed about their life quality and experience relating to HIV. Professionals and volunteers were interviewed about their strategies, their achievements, and the problems they encountered. The research was conducted in the course of three months fieldwork between September and November 2009. Our principal findings show, firstly, that moral or social stigmatisation does not in any simple way derive from fear, ignorance or inaccurate beliefs but that it is also established and continually reinforced by official campaigns addressing HIV/AIDS. Secondly, we show that stigmatisation is a socially complex and ambiguous process. Based on these empirical findings we conclude that HIV/AIDS need no longer be approached in AIDS intervention as a sexually acquired and fatal disease. When reliable access to antiretroviral drugs is in place, AIDS becomes a chronic condition with which one can live for many years, and this makes it easier to address HIV and moral or social stigmatisation by downplaying the current focus upon sexuality and morality.

Gender and trees in Péni, South-Western Burkina Faso. Women's needs, strategies and challenges

Abstract Geografisk Tidsskrift, Danish Journal of Geography 105(1):67–76, 2005 This article describes and explains the different interests and strategies that men and women have in tree management in Péni, southwestern Burkina Faso. It argues that men and women have different household responsibilities. While the responsibility of the men is to procure staple food, housing, clothes, medicines and administration fees, women are responsible for finding the ingredients of the sauce accompanying meals and to take care of the children and the daily domestic tasks. As a result, the women s interest in trees focuses on their use-value for the household, while men have a stronger interest in their commercial value. Consequently, women tend to rely heavily on the existence of communally owned resources that can be gathered by every one, while men prefer “privatised” resources. The social marginalisation of women makes it more difficult for them to manage tree resources according to their own needs. Women are not completely powerless, as they have developed successful strategies to bypass some of the existing social and tenure constraints and defend their interests. However, new regional and global trends have put women s resources and strategies under pressure.

Strengthening learning processes in natural resource management in developing countries through interdisciplinary and problem‐oriented learning

In 1998 three Danish universities developed an interdisciplinary, problem‐oriented curriculum in order to strengthen capacity‐building capabilities in the area of environmental education, training and research at universities and research organisations in Malaysia and Thailand earmarked for environment and development assistance by the Danish government. The programme, which was partly implemented in developing countries as periods of fieldwork, represented important educational innovations. The purpose of this study was to evaluate these activities. The distinct principles forming the educational foundation of the programme were identified. These related to the curriculum organization, the learning tasks and the learning environment. The first step in a cogent evaluation process was to examine how the educational principles were oprerationalized into practical teaching/learning steps. In the next step, they formed the criteria for the evaluation. On the basis of quantitative and qualitative data it was shown that the programme fulfilled the stipulated accademic requirements.

“Tell me what you play and I will tell you who you are”: values and gambling habits in two Danish universities

This article describes different gambling patterns found among students at a business school and at a faculty of social sciences in Copenhagen, Denmark. On the one hand, it was found that students who play games of skill (such as poker or betting on football or horses, etc.) tended to be male, studying business, investing in stock options and voting on the right of the political spectrum. On the other hand, students who played games of chance (lotto, bingo, etc.) were more likely to be female, studying social sciences, preferring savings rather than risky investments and voting on the left of the political spectrum. We suggest that the competitive aspect of games of skill is attractive to those who believe in rewarding individual risk in a competitive market, while the more egalitarian and impersonal nature of games of chances is preferred by people who place a stronger emphasis on social equity.

Gender and forum shopping in land conflict resolution in Northern Uganda

ABSTRACT Northern Uganda has been plagued by a long and violent civil war that lasted from 1996 to 2006, during which 2.5 million people were internally displaced and placed in camps. During the conflict, Uganda adopted a new constitution and a new land act that recognised customary land tenure and the role played by customary institutions in resolving land disputes. Following the cessation of hostilities in 2006, people began to go back “home”, and many land conflicts ensued. Because women are generally considered as particularly vulnerable in land conflicts, they have received much attention from the Ugandan government, international donors, and NGOs. This article focuses on how women make use of the existing legal pluralism in Uganda to defend their interests in land disputes. It argues that land conflicts are often proxies of social conflicts, which play a major role in womens opting for customary institutions to resolve their land conflicts.

Drivers for retrofit: a sociocultural approach to houses and inhabitants

ABSTRACT Private households constitute approximately 30% of the total energy consumption in Denmark. The greatest potential for reducing energy consumption in private households is through retrofits of existing houses. One of the most common ways to promote retrofits is the act of sending an energy advisor to visit homeowners in order to explain the technological and economic advantages that arise from undertaking a retrofit. However, little is known about how homeowners make sense of retrofits. Based on an extensive anthropological fieldwork study of 12 Danish homeowners who had received energy advice, retrofits were investigated from the perspective of the everyday life of homeowners. Three social dimensions that played an important role when the people in the study discussed house renovation were identified and discussed: houses as part of homeowners’ life cycles and personal events; houses as frameworks for social relations; and houses as markers of social values and status. These results indicate a need to develop new strategies to promote retrofits more effectively, which focus less on the techno-economic aspects and more on the social dimensions.

Les Rites initiatiques des Dii de l'Adamaoua (review)

geography (labelled urban planning), court inhabitants (minute descriptions of their location, attire, regalia and interlinkages) and court practices, the book represents an idealization that may never have been realized, unless briefly in the time of Ciam a Ciband (c. 1830–50) or Kabw Muzemb (c. 1880–93). Fourth, the vibrant and non-centralized nature of Kanyok social, intellectual, economic, military and political life is overwhelmed and obscured by the mass of static details about the Mwin Kanyok’s central court, the real focus of this book. In spite of these reservations, Ceyssens has presented a work that must be taken very seriously by historians and anthropologists concerned with Central Africa.

Jean-Claude Muller, Les Rites initiatiques des Dìì de l'Adamaoua . Nanterre: Société d'ethnologie (pb €22.50 – 2 901161 52 9). 2002, 129 pp.

geography (labelled urban planning), court inhabitants (minute descriptions of their location, attire, regalia and interlinkages) and court practices, the book represents an idealization that may never have been realized, unless briefly in the time of Ciam a Ciband (c. 1830–50) or Kabw Muzemb (c. 1880–93). Fourth, the vibrant and non-centralized nature of Kanyok social, intellectual, economic, military and political life is overwhelmed and obscured by the mass of static details about the Mwin Kanyok’s central court, the real focus of this book. In spite of these reservations, Ceyssens has presented a work that must be taken very seriously by historians and anthropologists concerned with Central Africa.