Poverty, Moral, And Anxiety

Since the discovery of the first AIDS/HIV patient who came from oversea in 1985, AIDS has been found in 31 provinces, autonomous regions and cities of China, among which Yunnan province, Xinjiang Autonomous Region, Guangxi Autonomous Region, and Sichuan province are most serious in situation. Yining city, capital of Yili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture of Xinjiang, since the reporting of its first HIV infector in January of 1996, has now become one of the cities which have the most HIV patients and the highest HIV infection rate. At present, HIV is mainly spread through mainline freak-out using common injectors in Yining city, patients infected with HIV in this way account for 95% of the total number and the infection rate is as high as 85% and even above among these drug addicts. Hence, when we are concerned with the AIDS problem, we must also attend to the drug problem of Yining city, we must pay attention to local drug problem. Meanwhile, there is also an increase in the number of HIV patients infected through sex and mother-baby in Yining city. Among the HIV patients, minority groups, especially Uyghurs, are major groups involved with drugs and AIDS.Yining city is located in the northwest border of China. Its economy is relatively underdeveloped. Uyghur is an ethnicity with a long history andbrilliant culture. In the transforming stages of modernization, both Yining City and Uyghur living there are inevitably faced with pains due to the sense of discontinuity. Problems such as economic transform, cultural discontinuity, and power loss come and go one after another. What course to follow becomes an unsolved problem in everybody's heart? Drugs take advantage of this weak point and become the temporary medicine for people's mental desperation and emptiness. Cultural poverty adds fuel to the fire for the spreading of drugs and AIDS.The main purpose of my dissertation is to show why Yining city has become the city inundant with AIDS in the past few years, and explore why Uyghur stand in the breach to become the victims of AIDS; my dissertation also aims to reveal the real state of this sub-cultural group by participating in a few life scenes, such as their communities, needle exchange stations, hospitals, and drug abstinence institutions, and by talking with them in depth. According to my observation, there exists enormous variety among this group. The final goal of this dissertation is to describe how this group deals with various kinds of relationships, including the relationships with their families, companions, epidemic prevention departments, police, etc.This dissertation also pays attention to the knowledge of local Uyghurs about drugs and AIDS, about how they look at drugs and AIDS, and how they interpret them.The correlation between Poverty and AIDS has already been proved by many scholars. This study interprets the reasons why Saadaite community becomes the target of drugs and AIDS using the "Poverty Culture" proposed by American anthoropologist Oscar Lewis. Because Poverty Culture stresses on poor people themselves, maintaining that it is they themselves who have caused all this trouble, it suffered criticism from other scholars since it came to the world. This study, based on the criticisms of later scholars and my own field research, tends to explore the weaknesses of the theory of Poverty Culture. Meanwhile, based on the researches on AIDS and poverty done by other scholars, the present study intends to compare the similarities and differences between Yining city and other areas which are troubled with AIDS and to determine whether there is a cause-and-effect relationship between the spreading of AIDS and poverty. By doing this, I hope to compensate for the weaknesses of Poverty Culture theory from a new angle in order to interpret the phenomenon of poverty better.This paper simultaneously studies the interior homogeneity and otherness of this sub-culture group, trying to revert their original outlook, return their discourse power, and rectify the monotonous and simplified description by researches done both inside and outside the nation. As a subgroup, they still have a complete cultural system which is used as principles for their words and deeds.Last, this paper tries to reveal the different survival strategies in different situations, with a special focus on how they deal with relationships with others.This group is hard to contact. They live at the edge of the society, suffering from people's discrimination and the police's attacks, therefore, it is hard for them to trust people outside their group. Whether taking drugs and whether getting AIDS is the only criterion for them to distinguish ingroups and outgroups, thus, it is imaginably hard to take them as the study objects. The research method in this study is a shining point. Apart from the participant observation and depth interviews, this paper also discusses the methods about how to approach this group in the investigation and how to get their trust.This study not only offers a vivid case for studies in this field, but also makes some suggestions from the methodological perspective. The prevalence of AIDS is closely related to its social and cultural background. In order to prevent AIDS from spreading further in Yining city, it is important to get some idea about the social and cultural background behind it. Starting from this perspective, the study strives to provide a reference point for AIDS prevention and treatment of Yining city. It can also provide an operating criterion for AIDS prevention and treatment in areas with similar cultural background.