ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the prescriptive nature of knowledge-based global HIV prevention strategies has affected the knowledge, explanatory accounts, and practices of youth in Lesotho. The continued dominance of Western ideologies, devaluing alternatives, presents an additional barrier to equitable global health communication platforms. The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) is one discussion platform that presents the issues, ideas, and interests of indigenous actors within global policy discussions. The culture-centered approach recognizes that dialogic interactions create opportunities for marginalized communities to articulate their viewpoints in a context that has traditionally silenced them. The basic requirements of civil society such as literacy, formal education, nuclear family units, and private property are considered necessary for involvement in knowledge-producing platforms. Globalization scholar Arjun Appadurai argues that both disjuncture and flow are the markers of globalization. Furthermore, involvement in the production of knowledge has been limited to a few elites based in global organizations and academic institutions with Western-centric ideologies.
