Non-Governmental Public Action Series Series Editor: Jude Howell, Professor of International Development, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK Non-governmental public action (NGPA) by and for disadvantaged and marginalized people has become increasingly significant over the past two decades. This new book series is designed to make a fresh and original contribution to the understanding of NGPA. It presents the findings of innovative and policy-relevant research carried out by established and new scholars working in collaboration with researchers across the world. The series is international in scope and includes both theoretical and empirical work. The series marks a departure from previous studies in this area in at least two important respects. First, it goes beyond a singular focus on developmental NGOs or the voluntary sector to include a range of non-governmental public actors such as advocacy networks, campaigns and coalitions, trades unions, peace groups, rights-based groups, cooperatives and social movements. Second, the series is innovative in stimulating a new approach to international comparative research that promotes comparison of the so-called developing world with the so-called developed world, thereby querying the conceptual utility and relevance of categories such as North and South. Titles include: Barbara Bompani and Maria Frahm-Arp (editors) DEVELOPMENT AND POLITICS FROM BELOW Exploring Religious Spaces in the African State Marian Burchardt FAITH IN THE TIME OF AIDS Religion, Biopolitics and Modernity in South Africa Ana Cecilia Dinerstein THE POLITICS OF AUTONOMY IN LATIN AMERICA The Art of Organising Hope Brian Doherty and Timothy Doyle ENVIRONMENTALISM, RESISTANCE AND SOLIDARITY The Politics of Friends of the Earth International Dena Freeman (editor) PENTECOSTALISM AND DEVELOPMENT Churches, NGOs and Social Change in Africa David Herbert CREATING COMMUNITY COHESION Religion, Media and Multiculturalism Jude Howell (editor) GLOBAL MATTERS FOR NON-GOVERNMENTAL PUBLIC ACTION Jude Howell (editor) NON-GOVERNMENTAL PUBLIC ACTION AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
Jude Howell and Jeremy Lind COUNTER-TERRORISM, AID AND CIVIL SOCIETY Before and After the War on Terror Jenny Pearce (editor) PARTICIPATION AND DEMOCRACY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY Tim Pringle and Simon Clarke THE CHALLENGE OF TRANSITION Trade Unions in Russia, China and Vietnam Diane Stone KNOWLEDGE ACTORS AND TRANSNATIONAL GOVERNANCE The Private Public Policy Nexus in the Global Agora Chris van der Borgh and Crolijn Terwindt NGOS UNDER PRESSURE IN PARTIAL DEMOCRACIES Andrew Wells-Dang CIVIL SOCIETY NETWORKS IN CHINA AND VIETNAM Informal Pathbreakers in Health and the Environment Thomas Yarrow DEVELOPMENT BEYOND POLITICS Aid, Activism and NGOs in Ghana Non-Governmental Public Action Series Series Standing Order ISBN 978 0 230 22939 6 (hardback) and 978 0 230 22940 2 (paperback) (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
Faith in the Time of AIDS Religion, Biopolitics and Modernity in South Africa Marian Burchardt Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Germany
Marian Burchardt 2015 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6 10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-56059-2 ISBN 978-1-137-47777-4 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9781137477774 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Burchardt, Marian. Faith in the time of AIDS : religion, biopolitics, and modernity in South Africa / Marian Burchardt, Researcher, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Germany. pages cm. (Non-governmental public action) 1. South Africa Church history 20th century. 2. South Africa Church history 21st century. 3. AIDS (Disease) Religious aspects Christianity. 4. HIV infections Religious aspects Christianity. 5. AIDS (Disease) South Africa. 6. HIV infections South Africa. I. Title. BR1450.B87 2015 261.8 32196979200968 dc23 2015015178
To my parents Sabine and Günter
Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations viii ix xi Introduction 1 1 HIV/AIDS and Christian Engagements in Africa: Toward a Cultural Sociology of Social Technologies 22 2 The Global and the Local: Transnational Connections and the Rise of Faith-Based Organizations 45 3 A Moral Science of Sex 74 4 Having Sex, Making Love 98 5 Biographical Becoming: Life Projects 124 6 Helping Themselves: Religious AIDS Activism in Support Groups 156 Conclusions: Christianity, Social Change and Modernity in South Africa 179 Notes 190 References 199 Index 213 vii
Figures I.1 View over Khayelitsha 2 I.2 Informal settlement in Khayelitsha 3 1.1 Banner of an anti-stigmatization campaign of Melisizwe s support group 28 3.1 Facilitator, youth and visitors at a sexual education workshop in Khayelitsha 76 5.1 Outreach campaign of faith-based activists in the Eastern Cape province 125 6.1 Evangelical billboard campaign in Khayelitsha 167 6.2 Funeral of a family member of Melisizwe who had died from HIV/AIDS 170 C.1 A group of traditional healers returning home after a funeral at a Methodist Church 183 viii
Acknowledgments This book is the result of ethnographic engagements with issues around religion, urban civil society and HIV/AIDS in South Africa, which began with my PhD research in 2005 and continued through other projects on religion and South African modernity. First and foremost, I wish to thank those who are at the center of the book: the HIV/AIDS activists from Cape Town who believe in the power of engagement and compassion and some of whom passed away but who will never be forgotten. Especially, I am indebted to Monwabisi Magqoki and Nokubonga Yawa for their warmhearted support. Financially and logistically, the research project was generously sponsored by Evangelisches Studienwerk Villigst where I was a member of the research group Power, Morality, and Religion, the DFG research training group Critical Junctures of Globalization at the University of Leipzig, the Irmgard Coninx Foundation at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen. Many people supported this project throughout the years intellectually and personally. I am greatly indebted to my supervisor Monika Wohlrab-Sahr. From the very beginning, she encouraged and supported my work. Steven Robins was of great help in finding and navigating my way in the field; he also gave me the chance to discuss my work on two occasions with colleagues at the University of Stellenbosch. I also wish to thank James Beckford, who inspired my thinking about religion and social problems, for his readiness to be the second reviewer. In the course of the project, the International Research Network Religion, AIDS and Social Transformation in Africa (RASTA) became a veritable intellectual home for me. For inspiring and critical conversations about this project at different moments during the last ten years, I wish to thank Ingo Richter, Sabine Berking, Robert Thornton, Ann Swidler, Susan Watkins, José Casanova, Matthias Koenig, John R. Meyer, Eileen Moyer, Rijk van Dijk, Hansjörg Dilger, Vinh-Kim Nguyen, Josien de Klerk, Anita Hardon, Dieter Neubert, Afe Adogame, Susan Whyte, Peter van der Veer, Amy Patterson, Louise Mubanda Rasmussen, Deborah Bryceson, Catrine Shroff, Alessandro Gusman, Jack Tocco, Tony Simpson, Nadine Beckmann, Uta Karstein, Thomas Schmidt-Lux, Sarah Scheffold, ix
x Acknowledgments Irene Becci, Jean Terrier, Chris Colvin and especially my friends Alem Grabovac, Rene Umlauf, Stefan Höhne, Daniel Hechler, Alexander Brand, Katja Barthel, Sophie Cloutier, Taika Baillargeon, Toleen Touq and Herwig Reiter. In a different sense, more important than anyone else during the last five years of this project has been my partner Ana Laura Lozza.
Abbreviations AIC AIDS ANC ARV/ART BSE CBO CHAZ CMT FBO HIV INGO MSF NGO PEPFAR PMTCT SABC SANCO TAC TRC UCT UNAIDS USAID African Initiated Churches Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome African National Congress Antiretroviral Treatment Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Community Based Organization Christian Health Association of Zambia Community Media Trust Faith Based Organization Human Immunodeficiency Virus International Non Governmental Organization Medicine Sans Frontières Non Governmental Organization President s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission South African Broadcasting Corporation South African National Community Organization Treatment Action Campaign Truth and Reconciliation Commission University of Cape Town Joint United Nations Programme on AIDS United States Agency for International Development xi