When Bodies Remember: Experiences and Politics of AIDS in South Africa (review)

Against the background of the impact of the AIDS pandemic on South Africa, the relevance of this anthropological and sociological study on AIDS in South Africa cannot be emphasized strongly enough. The dichotomy, paradoxes, and complexities of the topic are effectively captured by counter-posing elements in the introduction: “sexual behaviors” versus government policy (xii), “multiple pasts and multiple presents” (xiv), “the luxurious setting of the International AIDS Conference in Durban and a corrugated metal shack in Alexandra township” (xvii), “political and ideological” sides of the issue in South Africa (xviii), “the relationship between science and politics” (71).

The first two chapters address the political dimensions of the epidemic in South Africa: the view of the government—especially the controversial viewpoints of the president (Mbeki) and the two ministers of health; the relentless “fight” to try to make antiretroviral treatment (ART) freely available; the never-ending battle between the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the government; the (in)famous Sarafina plays. An important point on the pandemic is made in chapter 1: that “the social context at the end of apartheid created particularly propitious conditions for widespread infection, in that it multiplied ‘high risk situations,’ namely poverty, urbanization, work-related migration, forced population displacements, intensifying civil war, and dislocation of social structures” (16).

Chapter 3 is devoted mainly to the seemingly endless debate on a cure and treatment for AIDS, some accompanying ethical issues, as well as the president’s confrontations with the orthodox medical community regarding the epidemic. The next chapter investigates the role of the apartheid past in the spread of the disease in the former homelands of Lebowa and Gazankulu (currently Limpopo Province). The author refers to South Africa as a “showcase” of how contagious diseases (such as TB) led to policies of spatial segregation. The controversial issue of the relationship of the “culture” (promiscuity) of Africans and the spread of the disease is also discussed. Furthermore, it is clear that by the second half of the eighties, AIDS was far from the number-one priority of the South African government. This chapter is interesting for its focus on the active role of the apartheid regime in “spreading the disease”; two prominent actors—Dr. Wouter Basson and Colonel Eugene de Kock—are highlighted.

The next two chapters provide a macro-level view. Chapter 5 draws on heartrending narratives to explore mining and AIDS, rape and AIDS, prostitution and AIDS, “companionship” and AIDS, and “survivor sex” and AIDS. Chapter 6 sketches the grim picture of the reality of AIDS and death in South Africa. The city of Johannesburg, for example, buries twenty thousand people a year, and this figure is expected to rise to seventy thousand by 2010. Furthermore, the city is making provision for the acquisition of an additional 1000 ha of new land and is investigating alternative methods to cope with the huge demand for burials and the expected increase in AIDS deaths (232). Again, the chapter is colored with striking personal “stories” and quotations. In trying to provide some light in the darkness, two possible solutions are briefly discussed—the African Renaissance, and moral regeneration. The conclusion provides a “verdict” on the AIDS pandemic in South Africa: “The history of AIDS in South Africa constitutes a web of meaning that extends well beyond country borders and the disease itself. It recounts a political world order composed of both social configurations and symbolic arrangements, relations of knowledge and power, representations of the self and discourses on the other” (275).

In both theoretical and empirical terms, this work presents a thorough and well-researched overview of the multifaceted AIDS dilemma in South Africa. Despite its long chapters, the book is well translated from the French, and (despite its subject) it reads easily.