Diseases and gender : an example of AIDS within the mossi population (M. EGROT).
1.1. Abridged litle: Disease and gender : the example of AIDS in mossi areas.
1.2.Discipline : ethnology,
1.3. Calendar :
- beginning October 1994,
- end of field enquiry February 1996
,
1.4. Attachment :
Laboratoire d'Écologie Humaine et d'Anthropologie
Pavillon de Lanfaut - 213, route des Alpes 13100 AIX-EN-PROVENCE - FRANCE
1.5. Partners
-National Committee of Fight against AIDS
- Laboratory of Human Ecology and Anthropology, Aix-en- Provence,
- Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Department of linguistics, University of Ouagadougou.
2. Presentation
2.1.Research Problem
:
The problem of this research is to describe and analyse, through an ethonological study, individual and social behaviors being structured around the HIV epidemic in rural mossi areas. The research will be structured around the concept of gender, an innovating approach in the field of medical anthropology. We will study how the sexual status of individuals directs the cultural representations of the disease and influences the behavior and modalities of decision taking regarding HIV infection.
2.2.Objectives
:
1/Collect information allowing a coherent description and analysis of the representations of HIV infection,
2/Study the integration of this pathology within the model of mossi interpretation of the disease,
3/ Evaluate the influence of the gender on the cultural representation of the disease and the body, the process of decision taking and the strategy of prevention and risk taking,
4/ Identify the values and the norms which structure sexuality and their eventual modifications since the emergence of the disease,
5/ Study the influence of the observation of certain non specified symptoms (diarrhoea and weight loss) considered as stigmas of AIDS on the control of other pathologies having identical clinical signs,
6/ Evaluate the accessibility and impact of campaigns of prevention within the rural population,
7/Describe and analyse the therapeutic itineraries of HIV infected patients and the social transformations brought about by the disease.
8/ Contribute by publishing the results through the elaboration of the pedagogical contents and the conception of the sanitary program of prevention.
2.3.Methods and Tools
The research will have recourse to methods of interviews and direct observations appropriate to ethnography during a one-year stay in a village.
2.4. Geographical zones concerned
Rural mossi area, Province of Bazega, Kienfiengue village,
2.5. Acquired Results
The field inquiry was completed recently and the analysis of gathered information has just begun.
2.6.Key words :
health, disease, HIV, AIDS, B. Faso, the young, migration, traditional medicine, representation of the disease, STD.
