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AIDS
Communication – an international view
http://www.comminit.com/
Dr. Barbara O. de Zalduondo
bdez@tvtassociates.com
Project Director, TvT Associates/The Synergy Project
1101 Vermont Ave. NW,Washington, DC 20005
Tel: (202) 842-2939; Fax: 202-842-7646
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What is an “international” perspective?
What appears to be different/particular about communication for
development when the issue is HIV/AIDS?
If this is a turning point, where should we go from here?
What is an “international” perspective?
Comparative
Distant from the grass-roots, from the most important locus of action
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Opportunity to
focus on the “forest”
A
privilege and a duty
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To listen, hear,
and try to understand
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To review and
apply lessons from the past
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To be vigilant
about respecting and enforcing values of participation, autonomy and
voice
HIV/AIDS Communication: Special Features
The HIV/AIDS community
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There IS an
HIV/AIDS community (solidarity)
The
community has a culture (language, norms)
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It’s all “us”
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Involvement of
PLHA, as agents and beneficiaries
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Views and needs of
PLHA are key; PLHA in the driver’s seat
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No
specialty/organization/individual can do it alone – partnership is the
only effective way
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Honors
relationships, community, and emotions, not just technical analysis
and data
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e.g. Names Quilt
HIV/AIDS requires attention to sexuality, not just sex and its
biological consequences
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Motivations
- Reproduction
- Relationships - emotions
- Desire/pleasure
- Instrumental uses
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Meanings
- Sex-gender system ties sex into personhood
- Meanings are “culturally constructed and socially reproduced”
- Interwoven
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Disconnects
between ideal and real behavior
-E.g., “norms” of fidelity that aren’t really norms, because there is
no punishment for infractions
Requires grasp of sexual culture AND health beliefs, in the context of
gender, age and SES
HIV/AIDS Related Stigma and Discrimination
“The term stigma, then, will be used to refer to an attribute that is
deeply discrediting...” causing a person’s very identity to be “spoiled
(Goffman, 1963:3).
...“a powerful discrediting and tainting social label that radically
changes the way individuals view themselves and are viewed as persons”
(Alonzo and Reynolds, p. 304)
AIDS-related stigma... refers to prejudice, discounting, discrediting,
and discrimination directed at people perceived to have AIDS or HIV and
at the individuals, groups, and communities with which they are
associated. (Herek, Mitnick et al. 1998).
Double burden of stigma
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Stigma associated
w/ HIV/AIDS
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Stigma associated
w/ vulnerable populations
-IDU
-Men and women with multiple sexual partners
-MSM
-Poverty
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Stigma complicates
all aspects of programming
- Reaching people at risk
- Targeting
- Mobilizing support and resources for services
- Engaging people to learn and take action
Vicious
cycle of stigma
Silence
is a VERB
Problems for communication
Where is the boundary between “Cultural Appropriateness” – and
complicity with the silence?
How to direct and tailor communication to and for people most in need,
without augmenting the stigma?
How to build cultural resonance in culturally diverse and complex
places, countries, and regions?
HIV/AIDS Communication: Special Features
The most effective path isn’t the obvious path
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Identify, label
and exclude/quarantine the infected, v. taking personal responsibility
for protection
- Manage w/ medicine v. mobilize communities
- Silence v. Openness
- Sanction v. solidarity and compassion
- Command and control v. participation and human rights
- Fear v. hope
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Every new audience
has to work through these alternatives, to embrace effective
approaches
- Can’t skip or speed this process, or deliver it in capsules
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