Exploring the potential for a culturally relevant HIV intervention project: a Swaziland example.
Typically, humanitarian workers view local conceptions of healing and disease as barriers to the prevention and treatment of HIV. This project aimed to engage Swazi traditional healers in discussions about the potential utility of conceptualizing HIV within the framework of Swazi traditional healing beliefs in order to determine the benefits and challenges of developing a locally-adapted HIV prevention model for Swaziland. Fieldwork was conducted in Swaziland from May through July 2006 to explore this hypothesis. The project evolved, through interactions with healers, to include observations on the dynamic nature of Swazi traditional healing beliefs and intervention practice. The study concludes that ethnographic approaches have the potential to enhance HIV intervention planning models by illustrating the complexities associated with collaboration. An anthropological perspective was able to facilitate an analysis of the diverse notions of 'culture' and the political and economic interests involved, which in turn proved useful in understanding what was at stake in this situation.
Knox
Justin R
JR
University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK. justinryanknox@yahoo.com
D003469:Culture; D013541:Eswatini; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans; D016488:Medicine, African Traditional / Q000379:methods*