ABSTRACT
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) has emerged as a fundamental and enduring feature of the human health scene. This chapter provides a description and analysis of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) risk among the Hmong by linking history, political economy, and culture. It shows how the political economy of Thailand has changed the lives and affected the cultural logic of one of the hilltribes, the Hmong. The chapter attempts to show how the changes have made Hmong more vulnerable to HIV infection. The opium poppy crop became the mainstay of the Hmong economy in Thailand and has remained so, even though the Thai government, due to external political pressure, made it illegal in 1958. Like religion and economy, it is embedded in an undifferentiated and complex dynamic lived world. Any HIV/AIDS prevention strategy will logically tend to gravitate toward an analysis of sexual activity and intravenous drug use, these being the major pathways of HIV transmission.
