Aids and Aids treatment in a rural South African setting

For an 18-month period between 2005 and 2007, Jonny Steinberg documented the responses of a small village to the arrival of an anti-retroviral treatme

For an 18-month period between 2005 and 2007, Jonny Steinberg documented the responses of a small village to the arrival of an anti-retroviral treatment programme. He was there to ask the following questions: What happens to the meaning of Aids when treatment for it becomes available for the first time? Does it become less stigmatised? Do some of the darker and more pernicious meanings attached to it begin to disintegrate? Most importantly, do the ill start coming forward for treatment or do significant numbers stay at home and die?

Using the rich ethnographic data he gathered, Steinberg offers lessons for the design and implementation of treatment programmes. He also pitches in to longstanding scholarly debates and about the relationship between AIDS stigma, witchcraft and sexual shame.

Johnny Steinberg is the author of four books: Thin Blue: The Unwritten Rules of Policing South Africa (2008); Sizwe's Test: A Young Man's Journey Through a Great Epidemic (2008);  The Number (2004); and Midlands (2002). Steinberg has also written extensively for the Institute for Security Studies on criminal justice policy in South Africa.

About the author

Jonny Steinberg is a freelance journalist and researcher. His work in the fields of crime and criminal justice includes two books, Midlands (2002) and The number (2004), an edited collections of essays, Crime Wave (2001), and several monographs and papers. He has worked as a senior consultant at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation in Johannesburg, and as a senior writer at Business Day. He has an MA in political studies from the University of the Witwatersrand and a doctorate in politics from Oxford University.