IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v60y2005i4p691-700.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Indigenous representations of illness and AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Liddell, Christine
  • Barrett, Louise
  • Bydawell, Moya

Abstract

Cultures all over the world have evolved illness representations that can accommodate not only new diseases, but also new epistemologies for explaining disease. This paper examines illness representations in Sub-Saharan Africa, and how these have responded to the emergence of AIDS. Indigenous views of illness (particularly STDs) exhibit coherent structure, in which causation, prevention and treatment relate to one another in functional ways. As an STD, an epidemic, and a disease which leads to premature death, AIDS lends itself readily to accommodation into established indigenous representations of illness. Even biomedical views of causation can be readily incorporated into traditional views of how illnesses are caused. However, biomedical and traditional views concerning prevention appear to be in direct conflict with one another, with potentially hazardous consequences. Research exploring the extent to which indigenous beliefs may be influencing people's decisions about safe sex could offer useful insights for AIDS prevention programs.

Suggested Citation

  • Liddell, Christine & Barrett, Louise & Bydawell, Moya, 2005. "Indigenous representations of illness and AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(4), pages 691-700, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:60:y:2005:i:4:p:691-700
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(04)00287-4
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dongo Rémi Kouabenan, 1998. "Beliefs and the Perception of Risks and Accidents," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 18(3), pages 243-252, June.
    2. Kesby, Mike, 2000. "Participatory diagramming as a means to improve communication about sex in rural Zimbabwe: a pilot study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 50(12), pages 1723-1741, June.
    3. Gustav Jahoda, 1961. "Traditional Healers and Other Institutions Concerned With Mental Illness in Ghana," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 7(4), pages 245-268, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lily Kpobi & Leslie Swartz, 2018. "‘That is how the real mad people behave’: Beliefs about and treatment of mental disorders by traditional medicine-men in Accra, Ghana," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 64(4), pages 309-316, June.
    2. Friend-du Preez, Natalie & Cameron, Noël & Griffiths, Paula, 2009. "Stuips, spuits and prophet ropes: The treatment of abantu childhood illnesses in urban South Africa," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 343-351, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Laura N. Rickard, 2014. "Perception of Risk and the Attribution of Responsibility for Accidents," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(3), pages 514-528, March.
    2. Rose Luke, 2023. "Current and Future Trends in Driver Behaviour and Traffic Safety Scholarship: An African Research Agenda," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(5), pages 1-23, February.
    3. Laura N. Rickard & Z. Janet Yang & Jonathon P. Schuldt & Gina M. Eosco & Clifford W. Scherer & Ricardo A. Daziano, 2017. "Sizing Up a Superstorm: Exploring the Role of Recalled Experience and Attribution of Responsibility in Judgments of Future Hurricane Risk," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(12), pages 2334-2349, December.
    4. Bruno Chauvin & Danièle Hermand & Etienne Mullet, 2007. "Risk Perception and Personality Facets," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(1), pages 171-185, February.
    5. Tawfik, Linda & Watkins, Susan Cotts, 2007. "Sex in Geneva, sex in Lilongwe, and sex in Balaka," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(5), pages 1090-1101, March.
    6. Donna M. Riley & C. Alison Newby & Tomás O. Leal‐Almeraz, 2006. "Incorporating Ethnographic Methods in Multidisciplinary Approaches to Risk Assessment and Communication: Cultural and Religious Uses of Mercury in Latino and Caribbean Communities," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(5), pages 1205-1221, October.
    7. Mingyu Liu & Jianping Wu & Adnan Yousaf & Linyang Wang & Kezhen Hu & Katherine L. Plant & Rich C. McIlroy & Neville A. Stanton, 2021. "Exploring the Relationship between Attitudes, Risk Perceptions, Fatalistic Beliefs, and Pedestrian Behaviors in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(7), pages 1-14, March.
    8. Danièle Hermand & Serge Karsenty & Yves Py & Laurent Guillet & Bruno Chauvin & Arnaud Simeone & María Teresa & Muñoz Sastre & Etienne Mullet, 2003. "Risk Target: An Interactive Context Factor in Risk Perception," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 23(4), pages 821-828, August.
    9. Shahram Heydari & Adrian Hickford & Rich McIlroy & Jeff Turner & Abdulgafoor M. Bachani, 2019. "Road Safety in Low-Income Countries: State of Knowledge and Future Directions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(22), pages 1-29, November.
    10. Oleke, Christopher & Blystad, Astrid & Rekdal, Ole Bjørn, 2005. ""When the obvious brother is not there": Political and cultural contexts of the orphan challenge in northern Uganda," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(12), pages 2628-2638, December.
    11. Becheur, Imene & Guizani, Haithem & Shaaban, Khaled, 2019. "Belief in fate and self-efficacy in road safety advertising based on guilt: An explanation based on negotiable fate," Australasian marketing journal, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 233-241.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:60:y:2005:i:4:p:691-700. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.