Social representations of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and its prevention in narratives by young Africans from five countries, 1997-2014: Implications for communication.

International recommendations related to the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV have evolved rapidly over time; recommendations have also varied contextually in line with local constraints and national policies. This study examines how young Africans made sense of mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) and PMTCT and related barriers and facilitators between 1997 and 2014 in the context of these complex and changing recommendations. It uses a distinctive data source: 1343 creative narratives submitted to HIV-themed scriptwriting competitions by young people aged 10-24 from 5 African countries (Senegal, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Kenya, and Swaziland) between 1997 and 2014. The study triangulates between analysis of quantifiable characteristics of the narratives, thematic qualitative analysis, and narrative-based approaches. MTCT occurs in 8% of the narratives (108), while it is prevented in 5% (65). Narratives differ according to whether they depict MTCT or PMTCT (or, rarely, both), evolve over time, and show cross-national thematic variation. In the aggregate, representations shift in line with increased access to testing and antiretroviral medications, with PMTCT narratives becoming more frequent and MTCT narratives becoming more hopeful as diagnosis becomes the gateway to ART access. However, storylines of intergenerational tragedy in which MTCT is depicted as inevitable persist through 2014. Alongside cross-national differences in theme and tone, narratives from higher prevalence Swaziland and Kenya situate MTCT/PMTCT more centrally within descriptions of life with HIV. Findings illustrate the need to improve communication about PMTCT, reframing negative cultural narratives to reflect the full promise of developments of the past decade and a half.

Making sense of HIV in southeastern Nigeria: fictional narratives, cultural meanings, and methodologies in medical anthropology.

Fictional narratives have rarely been used in medical anthropological research. This article illustrates the value of such narratives by examining how young people in southeastern Nigeria navigate the cultural resources available to them to make sense of HIV in their creative writing. Using thematic data analysis and narrative-based methodologies, it analyzes a sample (N = 120) from 1,849 narratives submitted by Nigerian youth to the 2005 Scenarios from Africa scriptwriting contest on the theme of HIV. The narratives are characterized by five salient themes: tragedy arising from the incompatibility of sex outside marriage and kinship obligations; female vulnerability and blame; peer pressure and moral ambivalence; conservative Christian sexual morality; and the social and family consequences of HIV. We consider the strengths and limitations of this narrative approach from a theoretical perspective and by juxtaposing our findings with those generated by Daniel Jordan Smith using standard ethnographic research methods with a similar Igbo youth population.

Antiretroviral therapy and reproductive life projects: mitigating the stigma of AIDS in Nigeria.

As millions of people infected with HIV in Africa are increasingly able to live longer and healthier lives because of access to antiretroviral therapy, concerns have emerged that people might eschew protective practices after their health improves. Extending beyond the notion of sexual "disinhibition," researchers have begun to analyze the sexual behavior of people in treatment through the perspective of their marital and childbearing aspirations. This article explores the reproductive life projects of HIV-positive men and women in southeastern Nigeria, showing how actions that contradict medical advice are understandable in the context of patients' socially normative desires for marriage and children. Based on in-depth interviews and observations (June-December 2004; June-July 2006; June-July 2007) of people enrolled in the region's oldest treatment program, we argue that broadly held social expectations with regard to reproduction are experienced even more acutely by HIV-positive people. This is because in Nigeria the stigma associated with AIDS is closely tied to widespread perceptions of social and moral crisis, such that AIDS itself is seen as both a cause and a symptom of anxiety-producing forms of social change. Specifically, in an era of rapid societal transformation, Nigerians see sexual promiscuity and the alienation of young people from traditional obligations to kin and community as indicative of threatened social reproduction. For people who are HIV-positive, marrying and having children offer not only the opportunity to lead normal lives, but also a means to mitigate the stigma associated with the disease. Four ethnographic case studies are provided to exemplify how and why social and personal life projects can trump or complicate medical and public health priorities. These examples suggest that treatment programs must openly address and proactively support the life projects of people on antiretroviral therapy if the full benefits of expanded access to treatment are to be realized.

Life projects and therapeutic itineraries: marriage, fertility, and antiretroviral therapy in Nigeria.

OBJECTIVE: To examine and understand the marital and fertility aspirations and behaviours of individuals receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Nigeria and evaluate the effects on sexual behaviour, disclosure, and adherence. DESIGN AND METHODS: The study used ethnographic methods of participant observation and in-depth interviews of individuals receiving ART through a government-supported programme in southeastern Nigeria. RESULTS: Interviews and observations of individuals on treatment demonstrate that marriage and childbearing are paramount desires for people whose health is restored by ART. The concept of life projects is introduced and combined with the established idea of therapeutic itineraries to show how participation in and adherence to treatment, disclosure of HIV status, and decisions about sexual behaviour cannot be understood in purely biomedical terms. Marital and reproductive aspirations routinely impinge on and often trump clinical and public health priorities. Emblematic case studies are provided to illustrate the social dynamics that motivate and explain behaviour seemingly inimical to individual and public health. CONCLUSION: Effective antiretroviral programme design and therapy management will require acknowledging and often enabling rather than discouraging the marital and reproductive goals of individuals if issues of disclosure, adherence, and prevention are to be realistically addressed.