Sovasova and the Problem of Sameness: Converging Interpretive Frameworks for Making Sense of HIV and AIDS in the Trobriand Islands

Abstract

This article considers how different models of sexuality and disease converge and interact to co‐produce understandings of HIV and AIDS, and the implications of inter‐cultural communication for effective HIV prevention in diverse settings. In the Trobriands Islands of Papua New Guinea, the phenomenon of sovasova, or chronic illness that manifests when members of the same matrilineal clan have sexual relations, is a persuasive and problematic form of cultural knowledge that directly influences comprehensions of HIV and AIDS. As a social proscription, sovasova underscores cultural ideations about the importance of social exchange and the corporeal mixing of difference in sexual relationships. Trobrianders recognize clear signs and symptoms that herald the onset of sovasova, which are similar to descriptions of AIDS‐related illness—weight loss, nausea, and malaise. Affected people use various herbal and magical treatments to effectively manage sovasova, and people can avoid the sickness altogether by simply not having sex with a fellow clan member. The cultural resources available for treatment allow people to regard transgression as a safe possibility, albeit socially undesirable. The broad comparisons that Trobrianders draw between sovasova and AIDS create tensions as people contemplate HIV prevention based on the cultural model of sexual disorder and the valued capacity and efficacy of sexuality in maintaining relations of difference.

Great Ancestral Women: Sexuality, Gendered Mobility, and HIV among the Bamu and Gogodala of Papua New Guinea

“…In this paper, however, we have assumed that people deploy different cultural frameworks when interpreting disease and disease causality, and these logics influence health‐related activities and behaviours to varying degrees. Like Farmer (:20,22) and others (Lepani , ; Wardlow ) we examined the ‘adoption’ of a new illness, HIV/AIDS, into existing interpretive frameworks around sickness, well‐being, gendered mobility, and sexuality. In this paper we have explored the extent to which, in two neighbouring communities in Western Province, narratives about female ancestors provide some ‘organising principles’ and ‘meaning structures’ for people's shifting understandings and experience of HIV/AIDS.…”

Born again, again: Witchcraft, Pentecostal conversions, and spiritual rebirth in the Trobriand Islands

“…However, the incest taboo also extends more broadly to encompass all veyola. In her work on HIV/ AIDS in the Trobriands, Lepani (2007Lepani ( , 2012 examines the "supreme taboo" of sovasova, (alternatively suvasova) which prohibits "any erotic dealings . .…”