Rethinking the Complexities of AIDS Impacts: A Call for Interdisciplinarity

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Rethinking the Complexities of AIDS Impacts A
Call for Interdisciplinarity
By May Chazan 1,2, Mike Brklacich1, Alan
Whiteside 2
1 Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada 2
HEARD, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South
Africa
XVI International AIDS Conference, Toronto,
August 2006
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Context

• AIDS and Climatic Change
• 2 major issues of past 25 years
• Substantive body of research with conceptual
  overlap
• Social vulnerability emerging as key theme
• Some similarities in research evolution and in
  current limitations

Growing dialogue between AIDS and climate change
researchers Southern Africa Vulnerability
Initiative (SAVI) Regional Network on HIV/ AIDS,
Rural Livelihoods and Food Security
(RENEWAL) CIDA Urban Food Security and HIV/ AIDS
in Southern Africa (upcoming)
XVI International AIDS Conference Chazan et
al, Rethinking AIDS Impacts
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Purpose
To examine the parallels and divergences within
the two areas in order to address current
limitations in AIDS research.

• Presentation Outline
• Review evolution of 2 fields of study
• Examine parallels and divergences in AIDS and CC
  research
• Explore opportunities to advance HIV/ AIDS
  research

XVI International AIDS Conference Chazan et
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HIV/ AIDS Dominant Research Themes
Human rights causes
Public health response
Treatment global threats
Re-medicalization costs
Science search for cause
1981 2006
Adapted from Illiffe 2006, Gill 2006
XVI International AIDS Conference Chazan et
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HIV/ AIDS Current Themes

• Re-medicalization
• Focus on crisis intervention
• Polarization of debates
• Global framing of epidemic

FROM AIDS ANALYSIS In this fanciful world,
were somehow all bobbing in the same boat, if
not exactly equally than all equally-at-peril...
- Marais 2005, p 7
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Trends in Climatic Change Research
Social Vulnerability
Equity
Human Adaptation
Mitigation
Future Impacts
Climate Science
1989 1995 2001 2007
Based on Four Assessment Reports IPCC
Adapted from Banuri et al 2001, Najam et al 2003
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Climate Change Current Themes

• Questioning science
• Global issue vs uneven impacts
• Techno-fixes vs social change
• Forward-looking

FROM CLIMATE CHANGE ANALYSIS The specifically
global scaling of climate change tends to
steer attention away from the difficult politics
that result from different interests. -
Demeritt 2001, p313
XVI International AIDS Conference Chazan et
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Climate Change and HIV/ AIDSParallels

• Getting and keeping root causes and uneven
  implications at the forefront of the agenda has
  proven difficult in both research areas
• WHY?

XVI International AIDS Conference Chazan et
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Climate Change and HIV/ AIDSParallels

• Global framing
• Depoliticized discourses
• Data debates polarization

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Climate Change and HIV/ AIDSDivergence
Preventive vs Reactive
Climate change
AIDS
Present-day capacity to respond to future stress
Past impact
FROM CLIMATE CHANGE ANALYSIS The vulnerability
of any individual or social grouping is
determined primarily by their existent state
rather than by what may or may not happen in the
future. -- Kelly Adger 2002
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Emerging Challenges for AIDS Research
FROM AIDS ANALYSIS
NOW
30
I) Unevenness/ inequity? II) Root causes?
25
HIV Infection
Impacts
AIDS
Percentage
20
15
Prevalence
10
III) Prevention vs Treatment vs Impact mitigation?
IV) Future?
5
0
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
Adapted from Whiteside 2004
Time
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Challenges and Implications for Future AIDS
Research I
Uneven and differentiated epidemics BUT global
responsibility

• Global framing of epidemic

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Challenges and Implications for Future AIDS
Research II

• Social justice orientation
• Focus on what causes inequalities in HIV
  prevalence, impact, capacity for response, access
  to treatment

Re-medicalization
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Challenges and Implications for Future AIDS
Research III

• What underlying issues crosscut unequal access to
  treatment, risk of infection and likelihood of
  bearing impacts?
• Acknowledging uncertainty but acting now to
  reduce present-day vulnerabilities

• Polarization of debates

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Challenges and Implications for Future AIDS
Research IV

• From reactive to proactive approaches
• Understanding and reducing present day
  vulnerabilities in order to reduce future
  tragedies

• Focus on crisis intervention

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Conclusions

• Opportunities to address AIDS within
  interdisciplinary social science context
• AIDS CC parallels and divergences provide
  hints

• Emerging AIDS social science agenda
• Differentiation in risk and responsibility
• Social justice approach, inequalities in root
  causes
• Beyond polarization to crosscutting drivers
• Forward-looking proactive approach

XVI International AIDS Conference Chazan et
al, Rethinking AIDS Impacts