In the third decade of the HIV and AIDS epidemic, women and particularly young women and girls have become a growing proportion of those affected and infected. What are the reasons for this growing “feminization” of the HIV and AIDS epidemic? Moreover, how and why is the response to the epidemic failing women? The articles and commentary on this online forum address the above questions with a particular focus on deeply rooted social, cultural and economic factors that are driving the epidemic. The authors especially interrogate the epistemological frameworks that are currently used to understand the epidemic and examine how these extant frameworks might be inadequate in capturing many gender-related dynamics.
The Fourth Wave online forum is a counterpart to the forthcoming Fourth Wave book being published by UNESCO and the SSRC. Manjari Mahajan is the editor of the online forum. Please visit our General Discussion thread to contribute your own comments and discussions of The Fourth Wave.
Jennifer F. Klot and Vinh-Kim Nguyen
This section uses case studies from the frontlines of the epidemic to question unexamined assumptions in our current understanding of the
AIDS pandemic and the intense and varied ways in which it is gendered.
The assumed universalism of HIV determinants in epidemiological discourse distracts from local and
situated knowledge and practices which can enable or prevent HIV transmission.
Socio-cultural and human rights approaches need to be mindful of local socio-cultural
factors and economies in order to better mobilize existing community energies in the response
to the epidemic. Gender and generational relations - within and outside of families and communities - shape
HIV risk and must be addressed and understood in both the context of local realities and broader social constellations of socio-cultural, economic and political terms.
This section focuses on global responses to the epidemic. In light of the manifest failure of international HIV interventions to protect women, it asks whether these responses are sufficiently attentive to the gendered vulnerabilities discussed in the previous section, despite the acknowledged centrality of gender discourses in the response to the epidemic. It explores the unintended consequences of massive institutional interventions and responses to the pandemic that have nonetheless appeared to recognize the centrality of gender issues to programme design and impact.
This section focuses on how societies and individuals respond to HIV interventions, focusing specifically on unintended and unexamined responses. This examination uses the lens of culture to sharpen analysis of how interventions produce cultural forms and local responses, rather than seeing culture as a barrier to intervention. We demonstrate in this section the unwitting power of intervention to produces cultures of response that, inadvertently, may heighten local social inequalities and gender vulnerabilities.
This section provides a critique of the data collection and knowledge production related to the pandemic within the context of a constantly evolving and dynamic bio-social environment. It further examines the dangers of over interpreting data, its selective use, and how well-intentioned desires for rapid information and responses can misrepresent the way in which the pandemic is evolving on the ground. It interrogates the limitations and potential of widely accepted biomedical approaches to understanding socio-cultural drivers and impacts of HIV and AIDS.
Catherine M. Pirkle
Social Science Research Council
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