ABSTRACT
How do silences about HIV shape the conditions for what it is like to live with HIV (and die of) the disease? How are silences used to create meaning and experiences? Many people with HIV keep silent about the disease in many contexts. The most obvious reason surely is that the disease seems to be able to give rise to social stigmatization all over the world. At the start of 2005, Nelson Mandela announced that his son had died of AIDS. In his television appearance he emphasized the importance of talking openly about the disease, thereby breaking the silence that is so often caused by shame and fear of stigmatization. In South Africa HIV/AIDS was not recognized as a serious national problem until the end of the 1990s. The current president, Thabo Mbeki, has become known to the world for not accepting the medical explanation for what causes AIDS and how the disease should be treated. He has instead stubbornly held up poverty as crucial for the development of the epidemic, and seemed not to agree with the medical understanding of the epidemic. This and other statements in connection with the AIDS conference in Durban in 2000 led a number of delegates at the conference, which had the motto “Breaking the silence,” to issue a declaration that AIDS is caused by HIV.
