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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:'We Are Made Quiet by This Annihilation': Historicizing Concepts of Bodily Pollution and Dangerous Sexuality in South Africa
Author:Carton, BenedictISNI
Year:2006
Periodical:International Journal of African Historical Studies
Volume:39
Issue:1
Pages:85-106
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:sexuality
Zulu
values
AIDS
animal diseases
History and Exploration
Health and Nutrition
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/40033997
Abstract:This article links recent studies of sexual and etiological socialization underlying 'humanity's deadliest cataclysm' (AIDS) with scholarly investigations of how animal plague in the late 19th century affected people's cosmological outlook in South Africa. It begins with topical debates informing historians' perceptions of the unfolding pandemic. The narrative then shifts to an examination of fears of contaminating sexuality during rinderpest and AIDS in Zulu-speaking African communities. These two episodes of crisis mortality - triggered by the unexpected loss of multitudes - spawned recrimination against perceived guilty parties. Such scapegoating not only reflected prevailing gender and racial power dynamics, but also determined ambivalent attitudes toward biomedical intervention. While some Africans rejected modern curative treatment as another instrument of white malevolence, others welcomed Western help, which sometimes integrated elements of traditional healing and scientific principle. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]
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