Sovasova and the Problem of Sameness: Converging Interpretive Frameworks for Making Sense of HIV and AIDS in the Trobriand Islands (Disease/Disorder Overview‪)‬

INTRODUCTION HIV is far greater than a microscopic pathogen. The human immunodeficiency virus 'transcends the boundaries of biomedicine' (Huber and Gillapsy 1998:191) as it moves through cultural landscapes and becomes visible in the social body, configured by discourses of sexuality, morality, fear, risk, and disease, and the meanings people bring to bear on the information they receive. Concurrent with the persistent spread of HIV infection throughout the world is the proliferation of multiple ways of comprehending HIV and AIDS as different knowledge systems and discourses converge and interact, producing an 'epidemic of meanings or signification' (Treichler 1999:11).