Loading...
Support Groups, Marriage, and the Management of Ambiguity among HIV-Positive Women in Northern Nigeria
Rhine, Kathryn Angela
Rhine, Kathryn Angela
Citations
Altmetric:
Abstract
In the context of the African HIV epidemic, support groups are not simply spaces for discussions of social and health well-being; neither are they institutions functioning solely to cultivate self-responsible and economically empowered patients. HIV-positive women in northern Nigeria have appropriated a support group to facilitate their marriage arrangements. In this group, women negotiate the threats of stigma and the promises of respectable marriage through what I call the management of ambiguity surrounding their HIV status. I further argue that the practice of support group matchmaking reveals the local political economic dynamics that shape social and illness trajectories in resource-poor settings.
Description
Date
2009-03
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The John Hopkins University Press
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Keywords
HIV/AIDS, Stigma, Support Groups, Kinship, Gender Politics, Nigeria
Citation
Rhine, Kathryn A. (2009) "Support Groups, Marriage, and the Management of Ambiguity among HIV-Positive Women in Northern Nigeria" Anthropol Q. 2009 ; 82(2): 369–400. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/anq.0.0067.