Psychosocial analysis of HIV/AIDS-related stigma in South Africa

Eleven well-educated students from a university in South Africa, all actively involved in the field of HIV/AIDS, were interviewed through a free-associative-narrative method. This study sought to explore students' perceptions of HIV/AIDS in an attempt to assess whether stigma may occur. To the authors' knowledge, no similar studies exploring HIV/AIDS-related stigma have been done on young adults in South Africa who are actively involved with, and highly educated on, issues around HIV/AIDS. Through their representations, the participants tend to "other" the epidemic and thus distance themselves from a sense of threat. Many of the discourses in which the participants invest also fit into existing power relations, reinforcing some of the most prevalent forms of oppression in South Africa. In line with psychosocial understandings of HIV/AIDS stigma, the results indicate that this "atypical" group of students possess stigmatizing tendencies toward the epidemic and those infected. The findings have both theoretical and practical implications for conceptualizing and challenging HIV/AIDS stigma.