AIDS in Zulu idiom: etiological configurations of women, pollution and modernity

Abstract

This chapter explores local interpretations of HIV/AIDS in KwaZulu-Natal and draws upon ethnographic spanning over a decade of study on the socio-cultural constructions and meanings of AIDS among isiZulu-speaking people. Primarily based on fieldwork in the peri-urban region of Mariannhill, west of Durban, an attempt is made to illuminate the critical role played by cultural schemes in shaping people's ongoing experiences of and responses to HIV/AIDS. In our quest to develop more effective HIV/AIDS interventions perhaps it is time to reconsider Triandis's views and to design ways to address the pandemic that relate more closely to people's own local truths about the disease.