Roundtable: HIV, gender, and Religion
Abstract
Our central aim in this lead-in piece is to chart the ways in which particular epistemological frameworks within the study of gender and religion serve to interrogate and challenge the systems of knowledge that exist in the HIV pandemic in the African and global contexts. We argue that the epistemological frameworks that gender and religion studies generate have caused significant paradigm shifts within HIV knowledge production both on the popular and academic level. These shifts have been so profound that HIV studies that do not take these areas of study seriously can and should have their credibility questioned. We wish to demonstrate our central argument by reflecting on a decade of experience in researching and teaching in the area of HIV, gender, and religion in Africa. These experiences are found in a selected number of program, research projects, and initiatives that relate to or emanate from the work of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians (the Circle). These are, inter alia, Yale’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA); the Ecumenical HIV and AIDS Initiative in Africa (EHAIA), and a bilateral project between the Universities of Oslo and KwaZulu-Natal called “Broken Women, Healing Traditions: Indigenous Resources for Gender Critique and Social Transformation in the Context of HIV & AIDS” (the Broken Women project). While the studies have been done in Africa, the impact is global.