The Aids Pandemic in Latin America
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12209482 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gabriela Soto Laveaga (University of California, Santa Barbara, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 21 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 180-182 |
| Publication date | 2008-03-07 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social History of Medicine (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0951-631X • E-ISSN: 1477-4666 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/shm/hkn006 |
| OpenAlex | W2125160635 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 11 |
In an engagingly written book, Shawn Smallman explores the idea that to understand AIDS in Latin America we must place the disease within a broader international context. In other words, it is necessary to frame the evolution of the disease in the region as part of a larger geo-political phenomena, such as the drug trade, migration and war. Furthermore, one must consider the specific nature of the NGOs, the Church and private organisations when analysing what type of educational or preventive programmes have been implemented. The author starts by succinctly tracing the arc of HIV transmission in Latin America from confusion to hysteria to culturally specific solutions. The disease was initially interpreted as a reflection of the excess and moral decadence of the USA and many believed that ‘morally superior’ Latin America would be immune to the ravages of the illness. Moreover, the first cases in the early 1980s coincided with staunch anti-Americanism fuelled by President Ronald Reagan's military intervention in Central American revolutions and, hence, it reinforced politically charged claims of American imperialism. The fleeting accusation that the disease was nothing more than ‘an invention by Ronald Reagan to control our sexuality’ (p. 117) gave way instead to the certainty that the disease was frighteningly real
Certainty · Context (archaeology · Criminology · Decadence · Epistemology · False accusation · Latin Americans · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Food Security and Health in Diverse Populations · Global Public Health Policies and Epidemiology · Global Security and Public Health · History · Law · Philosophy
Constructing publics, preventing diseases and medicalizing bodies
Vidas inimaginadas
HIV+ caregivers and HIV+ non-caregivers
Braiding Public Health and Human Rights
Farmers, Markets and Contracts
Abortion in Latin America
Social and policy dimensions of HIV and Aids in Vietnam
Social inequities and contemporary struggles for collective health in Latin America
Religious communities and HIV prevention
Latin America at the margins? Implications of the geographic and epistemic narrowing of ‘global’ health
The Catholic Church, moral doctrine, and HIV prevention in Recife, Brazil
| Citations per year | 0.61 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2008 - 2023 (16) |
| Highly cited | No |