The Politics of Vodou: Aids, Access to Health Care and the Use of Culture in Haiti

During the past few years, the AIDS campaign in Haiti has been targeting Vodou officiants and organizations. These awareness and training programmes inform officiants about the transmission and prevention of AIDS, tests for HIV and antiretroviral drugs, or even try to encourage them to become involv...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Anthropology in action (London, England : 1994) England : 1994), 2007-12, Vol.14 (3), p.59-68
Main Author: Benoit, Catherine
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
AIDS (Disease)
Haiti
Health care industry
Health Care Services
Health care services accessibility
Health Problems
Highly active antiretroviral therapy
HIV testing
HIV tests
Intervention
Medications
Political activity
Political aspects
Prevention
Public health
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Summary:During the past few years, the AIDS campaign in Haiti has been targeting Vodou officiants and organizations. These awareness and training programmes inform officiants about the transmission and prevention of AIDS, tests for HIV and antiretroviral drugs, or even try to encourage them to become involved in a medical referral system. These culturalist interventions are grounded in an essentialist concept of culture that can have harmful effects on the targeted groups. The concept of culture underlying such interventions is deconstructed along with the categories of traditional medicine and the 'tradipractitioner'. An approach to public health is advocated that would contextualize medical pluralism in Haiti. KEYWORDS: culture, traditional medicine, public health, AIDS, Vodou, Haiti.
ISSN:0967-201X
1752-2285
DOI:10.3167/aia.2007.140307