In search of safety, negotiating everyday forms of risk: Sex work, criminalization, and HIV/AIDS in the slums of Kampala
Abstract
This dissertation offers an in-depth descriptive account of how women manage daily risks associated with sex work, criminalization, and HIV/AIDS. Primary data collection took place within two slums in Kampala, Uganda over the course of fourteen months. The emphasis was on ethnographic methodologies involving participant observation and informal and unstructured interviewing. Insights then informed document analysis of international and national policies concerning HIV prevention and treatment strategies in the context of Uganda. The dissertation finds social networks and social capital provide the basis for community formation in the sex trade. It holds that these interpersonal processes are necessary components for how women manage daily risks associated with sex work and criminalization. However, the dissertation also finds that women’s social connections can undermine the strategies they need to manage their HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. This is because current HIV/AIDS policies prioritize individual behavioral change practices that undermine the complex interpersonal activities developed by women to stay alive. In response, this dissertation concludes that social networks are fundamental to the formation of sex work communities and to the survival of women in the sex trade and should be considered in future HIV policies and programs intending to intervene in the HIV epidemic of female commercial sex workers in Kampala, Uganda.^
Subject Area
African studies|African history|Gender studies
Recommended Citation
Cruz, Serena, "In search of safety, negotiating everyday forms of risk: Sex work, criminalization, and HIV/AIDS in the slums of Kampala" (2015). ProQuest ETD Collection for FIU. AAI10165971.
https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/dissertations/AAI10165971