RFI: Breast-feeding in West Africa
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Dear colleagues,
I am a medical doctor specialised in public health. As I had to deal
with culture during fieldwork in Africa, I began to study anthropology.
I just finished my PhD thesis, and you will find a summary hereafter. I
have written about 12 papers on the question of AIDS in Africa, but
they are all in French, as well as the thesis. Anyway, if some French-
speaking person is interested by any publication, let him (her) know my
e-mail address.
(I also work for "Societes d'Afrique et SIDA", a public health and so-
cial sciences research and information unit, that has a web page in
French and English. I shall send you all information in a next message
if you are interested.)
Now, I am starting a research on perceptions and practices of breast-
feeding in West Africa, studied from an ethnological point of view. I
shall be happy if people that have heard of research projects or publi-
cations in that field just let me know.
Thank you for all.
Alice Desclaux
mailto:adesclau@easynet.fr
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PhD Thesis in Anthropology:
THE INVISIBLE EPIDEMIC. THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF A HEALTH SYSTEM FACING AIDS
IN CHILDREN IN BOBO DIOULASSO, BURKINA FASO
Though several million children have probably been infected by HIV in
Africa, their disease is not sufficiently known and less considered.
The scope of this dissertation is to analyse the social treatment of
AIDS in children in a Southern country and the reasons for this si-
lence.
In the first section, we analyse the health "sub-system" devoted to
children in Bobo Dioulasso as a symbolic and as a social system,
through its participants, through the perceptions of disease -
especially diarrheas, malnutritions and AIDS- and through different as-
pects of therapeutic relationships.
In the second section, we study the emergence of AIDS, from perceptions
to institutions, and we show how the social construction of AIDS, in
the biomedical and the popular sectors, has eclipsed AIDS in children.
In the third section, we study how HIV/AIDS is treated in the paediat-
ric ward of a hospital, through its new practices, the local interpre-
tation of international medical norms, the limits met by parents and
health professionals, and the changes in professional roles.
In a fourth section, we analyse the impact of AIDS on the biomedical
system at three levels: the exclusion of HIV+ children by services de-
voted to malnourished children, related to the social feature of the
treatment of malnutrition; the absence of consideration for HIV trans-
mission through breast-feeding, related to perceptions prevailing in
the international medical culture; health seeking behaviours for chil-
dren suspected to be infected by HIV depend more on social than on
medical factors.
AIDS discloses the symbolic, practical, sociological logics of biomedi-
cal institutions, that do not always allow them to adapt to the epide-
miological change. These logics related to North-South relationships
contribute to "obliterate" the infection in children in Southern coun-
tries, accentuating the gap between "Northern AIDS" and "Southern
AIDS".
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