Sero-Kinship

How Young People Living With HIV/Aids Survive in Southeast Nigeria

Bibliographic Data

ID4643266
AuthorsElochukwu Ernest Uzim (0000-0002-5460-3582, National Taiwan University), Ijeoma Igwe (University of Nigeria), Po-Han Lee (0000-0001-7547-1235, National Taiwan University, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume35
Issue2
Pages190-200
Publication date2025-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueQualitative Health Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1049-7323 • E-ISSN: 1552-7557
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/10497323241254256
PMID39110001
OpenAlexW4401392357
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited52

Research on the lived experiences of HIV survivors, including young people living with HIV, has primarily emphasized broader sociocultural concerns, such as stigmatization and cultural attitudes toward sexuality and gender, while giving less attention to the interconnectedness of these issues with the mental well-being of those affected by the illness. This study, drawing on relational ethnography including observations and interviews at four antiretroviral-administering healthcare facilities in Enugu State, southeast Nigeria, explores how young people living with HIV strive toward viral suppression and how they develop collaborative psychosocial support along with the global efforts in eradicating the HIV epidemic. We found that, in and between themselves, young people living with HIV weave for themselves a network of relationships, though discreetly, to foster and encourage survivorship. Such relatedness, where mutual trust and support have emerged and rebuilt HIV survivors' faith in a livable life, forms what we conceptualize as "sero-kinship." That is, sero-kinship, which focuses on how people create and change meanings in their everyday lives that ultimately contribute to controlling HIV and treatment management, forms an essential foundation on which a life with HIV becomes thinkable, bearable, then manageable, and acceptable

Ethnography · Faith · Family medicine · Human sexuality · Kinship · Mental health · Psychiatry · Psychosocial · Qualitative research · Sociocultural evolution · Sociology · Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health · Anthropology · Gender Studies · HIV, Drug Use, Sexual Risk · HIV/AIDS Research and Interventions · Medicine · Psychology