Table Of ContentReligion and aidS TReaTmenT in afRica
Tis book critically interrogates emerging interconnections between religion
and biomedicine in africa in the era of antiretroviral treatment for aidS.
Highlighting the complex relationships between religious ideologies, practices
and organizations on the one hand, and biomedical treatment programmes and
the scientifc languages and public health institutions that sustain them on the
other, this anthology charts largely uncovered terrain in the social science study
of the aids epidemic.
Tis page has been lef blank intentionally
Religion and aidS Treatment
in africa
Saving Souls, Prolonging lives
edited by
Rijk van dijk
Afican Studies Centre, Holland
HanSjöRg dilgeR
Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
maRian BuRcHaRdT
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen
THeRa RaSing
University of Lusaka (UNILUS), Zambia
© Rijk van dijk, Hansjörg dilger, marian Burchardt, Tera Rasing and the contributors 2014
all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Rijk van dijk, Hansjörg dilger, marian Burchardt and Tera Rasing have asserted their right
under the copyright, designs and Patents act, 1988, to be identifed as the editors of this
work.
Published by
ashgate Publishing limited ashgate Publishing company
Wey court east 110 cherry Street
union Road Suite 3-1
farnham Burlington, vT 05401-3818
Surrey, gu9 7PT uSa
england
www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
a catalogue record for this book is available from the British library
Te Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Religion and aidS treatment in africa : saving souls, prolonging lives / edited by Rijk van dijk,
Hansjörg dilger, marian Burchardt and Tera Rasing.
pages cm
includes index.
iSBn 978-1-4094-5669-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) — iSBn 978-1-4724-2840-0 (ebook) —
iSBn 978-1-4724-2841-7 (epub) 1. aidS (disease)—Treatment—africa. 2. aidS (disease)—
Treatment—Religious aspects—christianity. i. dijk, Rijk van, 1959– editor of compilation.
ii. dilger, Hansjörg, editor of compilation. iii. Burchardt, marian, editor of compilation.
iv. Rasing, Tera, editor of compilation.
Ra643.86.a35R45 2014
362.19697’920096--dc 3
2014000528
iSBn 9781409456698 (hbk)
iSBn 9781472428400 (ebk – Pdf)
iSBn 9781472428417 (ebk – ePuB)
V
Printed in the united kingdom by Henry ling limited,
at the dorset Press, dorchester, dT1 1Hd
Contents
List of Figures vii
Notes on Contributors ix
Acknowledgements xv
Introduction: Religion and AIDS Treatment in Africa:
Te Redemptive Moment 1
Hansjörg Dilger, Marian Burchardt and Rijk van Dijk
PART I AgenCy, SubjeCTIvITy AnD AuThoRITy
1 Fashioning Selves and Fashioning Styles: negotiating the
Personal and the Rhetorical in the experiences of African
Recipients of ARv Treatment 27
Felicitas Becker
2 Te Logic of Terapeutic habitus: Culture, Religion
and biomedical AIDS Treatments in South Africa 49
Marian Burchardt
3 ‘A blessing in Disguise’: Te Art of Surviving hIv/AIDS
as a Member of the Zionist Christian Church in South Africa 73
Bjarke Oxlund
4 ‘god has again remembered us!’ Christian Identity
and Men’s Attitudes to Antiretroviral Terapy in Zambia 95
Anthony Simpson
PART II ConTeSTIng TheRAPeuTIC DoMAInS
AnD PRACTICeS
5 Prophetic Medicine, Antiretrovirals, and the
Terapeutic economy of hIv in northern nigeria 119
Jack Ume Tocco
vi Religion and AIDS Treatment in Afica
6 ‘Silent nights, Anointing Days’: Post-hIv Test
Religious experiences in ghana 147
Benjamin Kobina Kwansa
7 Te blood of jesus and CD4 counts: Dreaming, Developing
and navigating Terapeutic options for Curing
hIv/AIDS in Tanzania 169
Dominik Mattes
PART III eMeRgenT oRgAnIZATIonAL FoRMS In
TIMeS oF ART
8 Societal Dynamics, State Relations, and International
Connections: Infuences on ghanaian and Zambian
Church Mobilization in AIDS Treatment 197
Amy S. Patterson
9 Te Role of Religious Institutions in the
District-Level governance of Anti-Retroviral
Treatment in Western uganda 223
A.M.J. Leusenkamp
10 negotiating holistic Care with the ‘Rules’ of ARv
Treatment in a Catholic Community-based organization
in Kampala 247
Louise Mubanda Rasmussen
11 notions of efcacy around a Chinese Medicinal Plant:
Artemisia annua – an Innovative AIDS therapy in Tanzania 271
Caroline Meier zu Biesen
Index 295
List of Figures
2.1 South African HIV/AIDS treatment activists in a village clinic in
the Eastern Cape Province (Source: Marian Burchardt) 53
5.1 Rubutun sha: A malam washes hand-written verses of the Qur’an
in water. An aficted person will then drink or bathe with the
resulting liquid, which is said to cure illnesses – including HIV/
AIDS (Source: Jack Tocco) 132
7.1 ‘I am afraid of AIDS!’ – ‘AIDS, what’s that? Tere’s medicine in
Loliondo! (Source: Musa Ngarango, Tanzania Daima, 6 May
2011) 174
Tis page has been lef blank intentionally
Notes on Contributors
Felicitas Becker obtained her PhD in African History from the University
of Cambridge. She has taught at School of Oriental and African Studies,
London, and Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, and now holds the post of
University Lecturer in African History at Cambridge University. Her research
interests focus on social history and Islam in modern East Africa. She is the
author of Becoming Muslim in Mainland Tanzania, 1890–2000 (OUP, 2008)
and of articles in Journal of Afican History, Journal of Religion in Afica, Afican
Afairs and Afica.
Marian Burchardt is a Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of
Religious and Ethnic Diversity. His PhD, which he received from the University
of Leipzig’s Cultural Studies Department, explores the entanglements of
religion, biomedicine and sexuality in South Africa’s fght against HIV/AIDS
from a transnational perspective. His research interests include the sociology
and anthropology of religion, modern social thought, medical anthropology, the
sociology of the body, transnationalism and globalization. His articles appeared
in, amongst others, Oxford Development Studies and Culture, Health and
Sexuality. One of his recent publications is ‘Subjects of Counselling: Religion,
HIV/AIDS and the Management of Everyday Life in South Africa’, in AIDS
and Religious Practices in Afica, edited by Becker and Geissler (Brill, 2009).
Hansjörg Dilger is a Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Freie
Universität Berlin. He has conducted long-term feldwork on HIV/AIDS and
social relations in Tanzania, focusing on the dynamics of kinship and Neo-
Pentecostalism in the context of rural–urban migration, as well as on the identity
politics and the limitations of collective action in urban NGOs. Dilger is author
of the book Living with AIDS: Illness, Death and Social Relationships in Afica
(Frankfurt, 2005, in German). He is also co-editor of the volume Morality, Hope
and Grief: Anthropologies of AIDS in Afica (Oxford, 2010, with Ute Luig). His
articles were published in Anthropological Quarterly, Afican Journal of Aids
Research, Journal of Religion in Afica, Medical Anthropology and Afica Today.
Dilger’s current book project is about Christian and Muslim Schools in Dar es
Salaam. He is a member of the steering committee of the Research Network
Religion and AIDS in Africa.
