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"Controlling ourselves, by ourselves": risk assemblages on Malaysia's assembly lines
1Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Baruch College, City University of New York, New York, NY 10010, USA. robin_root@baruch.cuny.edu
Medical Anthropology
|October 30, 2008
Summary
Factory women in Malaysia navigate HIV risks by integrating diverse knowledge systems. They actively shape their understanding and management of health risks, reflecting complex social and cultural influences.
Area of Science:
- Social Sciences
- Public Health
- Medical Anthropology
Background:
- Malaysian factories identified as high HIV/AIDS risk zones since the 1990s.
- Epidemiological concerns over rising HIV rates among factory workers, particularly women.
- Stereotypes associated factory women with risky sexual behavior and factories with immorality.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine factory women's lived experiences and understanding of HIV risk in Penang, Malaysia.
- To analyze how women rationalize and manage HIV risks within their social contexts.
- To explore the interplay of biomedical, socioreligious, and cultural discourses in shaping HIV risk perception.
Main Methods:
- Ethnographic research conducted in export processing zones in Penang, Malaysia (mid-1990s).
- Discourse analysis to identify women's rationalizations of HIV risks.
- Grounded theory to theorize the sources and significance of women's HIV risk 'assemblages'.
Main Results:
- Women utilized multiple, context-dependent knowledge sources (biomedical, socioreligious) for risk management.
- HIV risk was experienced and engendered through intersecting discourses of gender, ethnicity, and modernity.
- Women actively sought diverse risk knowledges for self-governance and self-shaping.
Conclusions:
- Women's understanding and management of HIV risk are dynamic and socially constructed.
- The concept of 'assemblages' highlights the localized and situational nature of risk knowledge.
- Intersectional factors significantly influence how factory women perceive and navigate HIV risks.
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