Exploring therapeutic citizenship’ as a governmentality of health issue in adhering to antiretroviral treatment (ART) for primary and secondary school teachers in Zambia.
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Date
2022
Authors
Mulubale, S.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
International Journal of Humanities Social Sciences and Education (IJHSSE)
Abstract
The psychosocial concerns of HIV medicalization and bracketing of wellbeing in medical sense
should not just be ‘normalised’ by clinical approaches. HIV medicalisation has become the basis of
normalisation among citizens without being questioned. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to examine the
extent to which HIV governmentality as mediated through a ‘therapeutic citizenship’ status, among school
teachers, especially those on antiretroviral treatment (ART), have an effect on their everyday and
development in Zambia. Semi-structured interviews with 41 (20 females and 21 males) purposively sampled
HIV positive teachers in Zambia aged between 25 – 55 were conducted in western and southern provinces.
Transcripts were processed using NVivo Pro 12®, following an inductive thematic analytic methodology.
Results indicate that though a treatable illness, HIV has both latent and visible varying effects based on
locality, language, gender, age, career, health care provisions, policy and social strata. Findings show that
HIV has strong effect on individual identity and collective affect through past experiences, present events and
medico-social uncertainties; stigma is still high and a big problem hindering disclosure; treatment access and
adaptation are hard for some people; anxieties and mental health issues/stigma are high but unattended as
they are outside set diagnostic medical categories; knowledge and information is averagely low. The
govermentalisation of health through ART seem ‘de-normalising’ for 60% of participants who think ART is a
form of ‘pharmaceutical colonialism’ that is stagnating Zambia’s national development. In the conclusion
and final proposition, this paper shows that HIV can seem like a disappearing disease yet the challenges for
ART are more medico-social and psychological than physiological. Since antiretroviral drugs increase life
longevity, research focus and policy interventions should now shift from quantity (span) to quality of life on
ART.
Keywords: ART, HIV, Governmentality, Therapeutic Citizenship, Teachers, Zambia
Description
Article
Keywords
HIV governmentality. , HIV medicalisation. , HIV Infections--therapy. , HIV treatment--Teachers.