This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Wallman, S. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Ordinary women and shapes of knowledge: perspectives on the context of STD and AIDS

Department of Anthropology, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, s.wallman{at}ucl.ac.uk

In Europe, as well as in Africa, HIV-related studies of women tend to focus on narrowly-defined professional, behavioral, or reproductive categories. The research population for this study of symptom definition and treatment-seeking among women in Kampala, Uganda, was defined only by residence in one low-income "parish" of that city. Its practical justification is the association of STD and HIV: effective treatment of (curable) STD can reduce the risk of HIV infection.

STD and AIDS, however prevalent, are never the only things ordinary people have to worry about; their capacity for preventing, managing, or explaining infection is dependent on the range of other things that may be happening in their lives. An analyst-observer's view is by contrast narrower, and the context of scientific understanding is different. This paper sets out an approach that stresses the differences between "real people" knowledge and scientific or professional knowledge about the problem, and between practical and symbolic levels of context. In the light of this approach the seeming chaos of what these women do—or do not do—about getting treatment for STD becomes intelligible.

I conclude that the contingency of context and the gap between "real" and "scientific" understanding combine to account for the normal inconsistency of social data, and that the proper use of a context perspective renders these data intelligible.

Public Understanding of Science, Vol. 7, No. 2, 169-185 (1998)
DOI: 10.1177/096366259800700205


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				B. V. Lewenstein Editorial: A decade of Public Understanding Public Understanding of Science, January 1, 2002; 11(1): 1 - 4. [PDF]