Virus et Cetera: Examining Local Reception and Response to Global HIV/AIDS Discourses in Papua New Guinea

Abstract

In this paper, I explore the multitude of meaning-making processes and ideologies that are at play in the contested field of HIV prevention and care in Papua New Guinea. First, I will explain how the biomedical frameworks of HIV/AIDS knowledge-making discursively enter the locale and contest the local etiology of health and sickness. I will consider a variety of ethnographies and theoretical works that contemplate the intersectionality and contestation between the biomedical framework and local peoples’ context and perception. Through comparative case studies of local practices, I contemplate how current biomedical models of HIV prevention and care succeed and fail in effectively addressing the epidemic in Papua New Guinea. In the end, I validate the biological framework’s great potential in HIV/AIDS prevention after modulation in a way that is suitable to the local context.