Identity, citizenship and the teaching profession: theoretical insights in the study of Zambian teachers living with human immune–deficiency virus (HIV).
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Date
2022
Authors
Mulubale, S.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal
Abstract
This article discusses HIV positive teachers’ medicalisation in the Zambian context.
It makes a theoretical appraisal of the dynamics of health in this HIV treatment era,
viewing the era as leaving the AIDS pandemic between two streams: a disappearing
tragedy and a treatable illness with latent psychological, social and economic effects
[1]. Teacher training, teachers’ economic status, their use of effective pedagogy and
many other factors have been chronicled extensively by various scholars across
disciplines in research on education in developing countries. However, teachers’
experiences of illness and health conditions, as key actors in implementing the
development agenda of many countries in Africa, have received very limited
attention. The HIV/AIDS burden in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is higher than
available resources to deal with the pandemic effectively [2] while the number of
people living with the virus and on ART in SSA countries, such as Zambia, remains
high [3]. The above proposition in this paper is supported by three fundamental
concepts which can be surmised as: governmentality and identity. These two
concepts – when effectively synthesised – offer new ways of understanding the
medical solutions, normalcy, and their limits in the everyday living of teachers who
are on ART. Based on this theoretical analysis and its relation to existing empirical
data, the central argument in the paper is that teachers’ daily lives seem to be filled
with the socio-political and economic consequences of HIV medicalisation and that
these consequences seem to shape and limit how teachers manage and make sense
of their acquired ‘therapeutic citizenship’ status.
Keywords: HIV, Identity, Governmentality, Teachers, Therapeutic Citizenship, Zambia
Description
Article
Keywords
Teachers and HIV/AIDs. , HIV/AIDS--Teachers.