The life and death of a street boy in East Africa: everyday violence in the time of AIDS
Lockhart, C.
Medical Anthropology Quarterly 22(1): 94-115
2008
ISSN/ISBN: 0745-5194 PMID: 18610815 DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1387.2008.00005.xDocument Number: 203198
This article focuses on the life history of a single street boy in northwestern Tanzania, whom I name Juma. I suggest that Juma's experiences and the life trajectory of himself and of significant individuals around him (particularly his mother) were structured by everyday violence. I describe everyday violence in terms of a conjuncture between macrostructural forces in East Africa (including a history of failed development schemes and the contemporary political economy of neoliberalism) and the lived experience of individuals as they negotiate local, contextual factors (including land-tenure practices, the power dynamics between immediate and extended kin, life on the streets, and constructions of gender and sexuality). I suggest that AIDS and its many impacts on Juma's life course can only be understood in a broader context of everyday violence. From this basis, I draw several general conclusions regarding AIDS prevention and intervention strategies.
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