Community-based Organisations in Policy and Practice. Sex Workers, HIV/AIDS and the Social Construction of Solutions.
Abstract
This chapter is concerned with how community-based organisations (CBOs) are constructed as an appropriate solution to the problem of Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) among women in the sex trade in India. Current HIV/AIDS policies prioritise the role of organisations of marginalised groups in the struggle to prevent transmission and to promote treatment of HIV/AIDS. It is not obvious, or given, however, that CBOs are automatically the solution to the problems of HIV/AIDS, and this chapter aims to investigate and problematise this claim.
In analysing the role of CBOs as a social construction, the chapter considers 1) how CBOs have become constructed as an appropriate solution in policy-making 2) the social contextual factors that have enabled certain CBOs to be successful 3) how the construction of solutions impacts upon the discourse and practice of health and development workers, thus reinforcing the reality of the social construction.
Citation
Chapter 9, in: Mishra, A. (2010) Health, Illness and Medicine: Ethnographic Readings in India. Orient Blackswan Private Limited, Hyderabad, India, pp. 231-252
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