‘White man’s disease’

Abstract

Through critical reflection on the conspiracy theories told about the origins of HIV by American Indians, we learned that many community members refused the universalized aspects of AIDS prevention, education, and intervention. We found that standard HIV/AIDS-related prevention and treatment programs tend to universalize experiences with and responses to the AIDS epidemic and ignore -or push to the margin -alternative framings and understandings of this disease. Inspired by American Indians' refusal to synthesize (in the Hegelian dialectical sense) their own experience into national and international AIDS knowledges, in this article we seek to engage with such marginal understandings, as well as their interactions with universal, individual, and community notions of care, AIDS, and health causality. The use of non-standard theories of the origins of AIDS by American Indians, we argue, disrupts the logic that attempts to universalize AIDS and community experiences. By making AIDS a 'White man's disease', Natives bring the epidemic in line with a history of social and health neglect by the settler state, and refuse to collapse their own, marginalized experiences and understandings of HIV/AIDS into dominant knowledges of the disease.

Perceptions and Experiences of Frontline Urban Indian Organization Healthcare Workers With Infection Prevention and Control During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…The group postulated that skepticism or denial was potentially a root cause of behaviors that put others at risk, contributing to patient resistance to practices such as wearing masks, social distancing, or foregoing cultural ceremonies to protect themselves or their families. Native perceptions of infectious diseases (e.g., smallpox or AIDS), chronic diseases such as diabetes, and even cancer as "white man's" diseases have been discussed in research and health literature (Jones, 2006;McLaughlin, 2010;DesJarlait, 2017;Pfeiffer and Gilley, 2017). The origins of these diseases relative to the white man have been described as punishment for sin or immorality with roots in religion, human-made biologics, disruption of traditional Native ways caused by adopting the white man's lifestyle, or conspiracy by the government to perpetrate genocide.…”

“…The origins of these diseases relative to the white man have been described as punishment for sin or immorality with roots in religion, human-made biologics, disruption of traditional Native ways caused by adopting the white man's lifestyle, or conspiracy by the government to perpetrate genocide. In virtually all cases, these perceptions and beliefs are often complex, deep-seated, and are an obstacle to care and treatment until overcome (Jones, 2006;McLaughlin, 2010;DesJarlait, 2017;Pfeiffer and Gilley, 2017).…”