When Bodies Remember: Experiences and Politics of AIDS in South Africa (California Series in Public Anthropology) | 
 enlarge | Author: Didier Fassin
Publisher: University of California Press
Category: Book
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Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 337616
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 390
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6 x 1.3
ISBN: 0520250273
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.196979200968
EAN: 9780520250277
Publication Date: March 14, 2007
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Product Description
In this book, France's leading medical anthropologist takes on one of the most tragic stories of the global AIDS crisis--the failure of the ANC government to stem the tide of the AIDS epidemic in South Africa. Didier Fassin traces the deep roots of the AIDS crisis to apartheid and, before that, to the colonial period.
One person in ten is infected with HIV in South Africa, and President Thabo Mbeki has initiated a global controversy by funding questionable medical research, casting doubt on the benefits of preventing mother-to-child transmission, and embracing dissidents who challenge the viral theory of AIDS. Fassin contextualizes Mbeki's position by sensitively exploring issues of race and genocide that surround this controversy. Basing his discussion on vivid ethnographical data collected in the townships of Johannesburg, he passionately demonstrates that the unprecedented epidemiological crisis in South Africa is a demographic catastrophe as well as a human tragedy, one that cannot be understood without reference to the social history of the country, in particular to institutionalized racial inequality as the fundamental principle of government during the past century.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Erudite and interesting December 6, 2007
Dr. Laleh Khalili (London, United Kingdom)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The book is a careful ethnography and even if one disagrees with some of its content, it should at the very least be taken seriously. The previous reviewer should never have reviewed the book if she doesn't understand such simple everyday words as ebullient, polemic, orthodoxy, precocity, licentious, or contemporaneous. Other words have theoretical content (like diachronic), but for god's sake, what on earth are you doing at Berkeley if you don't even know what a "polemic" is, and shouldn't you be challenging your own ignorance, rather than berating a book that doesn't conform to your super-simplistic views of what authorship is?
the price of reassurance November 11, 2008
John Bergren (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa)
After spending last year working as a doctor in a rural district hospital in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, I have found it difficult to describe depth of human tragedy taking place in this part of the world. Even more challenging is trying to explain why so little progress has been made with HIV/AIDS prevention in the face of so many sick and dying people--people in the prime of their lives with so many hopes as aspirations of a free South Africa.
Of the many writings I've come across on this difficult subject, Fassin's work clearly stands out as the most thoughtful treatment of the unique social, political and historical aspects of HIV/AIDS in South Africa for those of us situated in the biomedical paradigm and public health models of health promotion and disease prevention.
He writes: "The history of South Africa reminds us, often tragically, that opposite rationales may clash, that emotions may explode, and finally that health care policies are not only about health...[studies on health policy] tend to take at face value things that in my opinion do not at all go without saying; for example, that health is humankind's most precious possession and that everybody thinks so, or that sick people and doctors share the same interests, or that prevention is better than cure."(p. 35)
Through careful ethnographic observation and commentary, Fassin begins to explain the seemingly inexplicable in a way that for me was at once intellectually challenging and therapeutic. I highly recommend this book.
He concludes "Ours is an age of anxiety precisely because of the tension that exists between what is being protected and what is being abandoned, what is being fought for and what is given up for lost. In a world of inequality and violence, we can only be reassured on condition that we conceal from ourselves the price that must be paid for such reassurance. In this respect, the history of AIDS in South Africa can be read as paradigmatic of the world we live in today."(p 272)
 unbalanced July 16, 2008
Matthew Iofe (Brooklyn, NY USA)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is an unbalanced view of the so-called AIDS epidemic in South Africa. Thabo Mbeki put his reputation on the line to challenge the AIDS orthodoxy. For his reactionary intransigence he is marked with pejorative epithets like denialist. He is vilified and demonized. He refuses to accept that the health of South Africans is declining because of their sexual behaviour, not poverty and underdevelopment. He opposes pushing toxic drugs on pregnant woman and their babies. This honest and hard working leader deserves recognition. There are fair and balanced books on the South African AIDS epidemic, this book is not among them.
Errare humanum est sed diabolicum perseverare....
Significance under the Surface November 24, 2007
Jessica Jacobs (Berkeley, California, USA)
0 out of 8 found this review helpful
This book was a tad erudite for the average reader. A sampling of the words Fassin used that I looked up: diachronic, prophylaxy, contemporaneous, precocity, licentious, eponymous, tautology, leitmotiv, inculate, polemic, and phantasmatic. So while I wouldn't pick it up if I didn't have a dictionary (or wikipedia for those 'creative license' words) in hand, once you get past the tortuous sentences, Fassin's thesis proves pertinent.
Within Bodies there is a richly supported ethnography of the HIV/AIDS crisis in South Africa. The battle between Cultural Relativism and Universalism is presented in terms of South Africa's credibility in opposition to Western ideals being forced upon the country. Fassin summarizes the paradigm shift between Universal thinking and Culturally Relative thinking succinctly on page 93 in writing: "for a long time that approach focused on racial disqualification and discrimination (i.e., Africans seen as inferior); today it tends to shift toward cultural essentialism and exoticism (i.e., Africans seen as different)." Additionally, Fassin points out that looking at African's as different serves only to "mix empirical facts and unfounded rumors when they have not been proved, draw[ing] a catastrophic picture of Africa but also provid[ing] a view, legitimated by international organization label. (Fassin 150)"
All in all, When Bodies Remember, serves to better educate its readers not only on the history of the HIV/AIDS crisis, but also on how it's a cultural lesson for the global community:
"What is at stake is how people can live together, not only in South African society, from which we nevertheless have more to learn than is commonly supposed but also in a global society, whose injustices and divergences are rooted in ways of thinking that ignore or justify them." (Fassin xv)
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