What is it about?

Epidemics exist across time and space and how they are understood depends on who is looking at them and what questions they are asking. This article provides an overview of which histories of AIDS in South Africa have been written and considers which still need to be written. It also considers the dilemma historians and AIDS activists face in the context of a world where the notion of 'Post-AIDS' has gained ground - for many people in the world we are still in a 'present-AIDS' situation. The paper goes on to looks at hierarchies and power in relation to knowledge, disciplines, and the creation of global AIDS narratives.

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Why is it important?

The abilities of historians to time-travel means they have an important contribution to make in understanding AIDS. However as with other humanities, social sciences, and artistic disciplines, the opportunities for enriching conversations that could be taking place across disciplines as we try to respond to AIDS, is lost in the face of disciplinary hierarchies that favour medico-scientific disciplines. These hierarchies are reproduced in the journals that are held in greatest esteem and in the dynamics of global (English-language) publishing. Most articles about AIDS in Africa are not written by academics from the continent.

Perspectives

Inter- and transdisciplinary work around shared problems (like addressing AIDS) that is based on epistemic generosity, curiosity and respect, has the chance to transform how we understand and address these problems. My research has shown however, that there are hierarchies in knowledge and disciplines, and across structures, that mean that we do not know how to listen to, and learn from, each other. This article is my contribution towards starting those types of conversations

Assoc. Prof. Carla Tsampiras
University of Cape Town

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Temporal Dissonance: South African Historians and the ‘Post-AIDS’ Dilemma, Journal of Medical Humanities, April 2017, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/s10912-017-9440-x.
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