The task of the HIV translator: transforming global AIDS knowledge in an awareness workshop
Wardlow, H.
Medical Anthropology 31(5): 404-419
2012
ISSN/ISBN: 0145-9740 PMID: 22881381 DOI: 10.1080/01459740.2012.661002Document Number: 561527
The globalization of standardized knowledge about HIV and AIDS depends in part on local AIDS awareness educators who receive training from national and international organizations and then, ideally, disseminate what they have learned. In this article I analyze textual and observational data from a five-day introductory AIDS awareness workshop in rural Papua New Guinea. Although the instructor adhered to the handbook provided by the National AIDS Council for much of the information, she departed from it significantly when informing participants about the "root causes" of HIV's spread and in giving them advice about prevention. I explicate where her extratextual knowledge came from as well as its overall message to target audiences. I suggest that textual silences in AIDS awareness handbooks can motivate local HIV translators to embark on a kind of semiosis-the ongoing production of new, hybrid knowledge about HIV.