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. 2009 Spring;82(2):369-400.
doi: 10.1353/anq.0.0067.

Support Groups, Marriage, and the Management of Ambiguity among HIV-Positive Women in Northern Nigeria

Kathryn A Rhine  1
Affiliations

Support Groups, Marriage, and the Management of Ambiguity among HIV-Positive Women in Northern Nigeria

Kathryn A Rhine. Anthropol Q. 2009 Spring.

Abstract

In the context of the African HIV epidemic, support groups are not simply spaces for discussions of social and health well-being; neither are they institutions functioning solely to cultivate self-responsible and economically empowered patients. HIV-positive women in northern Nigeria have appropriated a support group to facilitate their marriage arrangements. In this group, women negotiate the threats of stigma and the promises of respectable marriage through what I call the management of ambiguity surrounding their HIV status. I further argue that the practice of support group matchmaking reveals the local political economic dynamics that shape social and illness trajectories in resource-poor settings.

Keywords: Gender Politics; HIV/AIDS; Kinship; Nigeria; Stigma; Support Groups.

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