Risky Marriage: HIV and Intimate Relationships in Tanzania (Studies in Body and Religion)

Given that women and girls carry the heaviest burdens of the African HIV pandemic, their lived experiences should be the starting point for any pedagogy of prevention. In light of this claim, Risky Marriage: HIV and Intimate Relationships in Tanzania uses qualitative fieldwork with HIV positive women living in Mwanza, Tanzania to ask why marriage is an HIV risk factor. By beginning with women’s experience as a hermeneutical lens, this book seeks to establish a creative space where African women can imagine new alternatives to HIV prevention that would promote human flourishing and abundant life in African communities. The aim of this book is to listen faithfully to the lived experiences of HIV positive women and ask how their experiences can help us re-imagine Christian conceptions of marriage, sexual ethics, and health in an HIV positive world. By drawing on the unwritten texts of women’s lives, this study proposes alternative pedagogies for faith-based prevention methods and contributes to the wider interdisciplinary and theo-ethical discourse on HIV prevention and women’s health. At the same time, it makes local impact of equal importance as women in East African communities are invited to think creatively about ways to end the HIV pandemic.

For more information and comments from the author, watch a trailer for the book here: http://vimeo.com/semafilms/riskymarriage