Migrant and HIV-positive women in Switzerland: the strategies of the secrecy action
Thirty years after the beginning of the epidemic, HIV/aids is still considered a stigmatizing illness. Carrying an invisible stigma, HIV-positive women from sub-Saharan Africa carefully manage the information on their HIV status. The aim of this paper is to address the dynamics of the “secrecy action” that these women demonstrate, pointing out their contextual and relational dimensions. We analyze the strategies that they implement to dissimulate the clues that could allow identifying their HIV status. Whether they are clothing strategies, strategies of conversion or of repair, anticipatory or situational strategies, they show the preventive actions in which these women engage themselves, in order to avoid risk of rejection and to increase their chances of remaining in the host country.
Keywords
- Secrecy
- Strategies
- HIV/aids
- Women
- Migration
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Publication information
Institutions:
Publisher:
¿Interrogations? N°22, «L’enquêteur face au secret»
Languages:
French
City:
Besançon
Year:
2016
Themes:
Disciplines:
Research labels:
Health – medicine
Migration – asylum
Subjects:
Sociology
Projects:
Genres:
Article