Citizenship in a time of HIV: Understanding medical adult male circumcision in South Africa.
Medical adult male circumcision has been shown to offer men significant protection against HIV infection during peno-vaginal sex. This has resulted in calls for a national roll-out of medical adult male circumcision in South Africa, a rights-based constitutional democracy. This article explores the ways that the potential tensions between this call to circumcise as a practice of good health citizenship and the guaranteed right to bodily integrity are negotiated in interviews with 30 urban-based men in Johannesburg. The results suggest that despite its demonstrable biological efficacy, these tensions may paralyse decision- and policy-makers in grappling with the potential scaling up of medical adult male circumcision for HIV prevention in South Africa.
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Lynlee
L
Howard-Payne
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Brett
B
Bowman
D000328:Adult; D002944:Circumcision, Male / Q000523:psychology*; D003906:Developing Countries; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000635:transmission; D006801:Humans; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D008297:Male; D017008:Negotiating; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000523:psychology; D010344:Patient Advocacy; D012933:Social Identification; D013019:South Africa
HIV prevention; South Africa; adults; circumcision; grounded theory; male