A critical study of HIV/AIDS diagnosed African -American women

Many individuals who are HIV positive are living longer due to the sophisticated medicines now available. Despite this, statistics demonstrate that HIV/AIDS is the third highest killer of African American women. There are considerable generalizations about women with HIV/AIDS, but little scholarship exists on the special population of African American women who are long term survivors of the virus.;In Central Harlem, where the virus is rampant, a small group of HIV positive women share the belief that they can continue to "live positive" through their commitment to each other and the empowerment they share. The subjects of this study are heterosexual women in recovery, care givers, mothers, college educated, the formerly homeless and parolees. HIV positive women experience the illness from a very different perspective than men, and their perceptions are central to an understanding of their survival.;African American women with the virus are rarely seen as individuals who are themselves vulnerable to AIDS infection or as individuals who are coping with a life threatening illness. Until recently, they were largely absent from AIDS discourse and research. When they were included, they were often categorized and studied as problems, prostitutes and drug addicts who transmit HIV to others (Cameron 2001). These images are not altogether wrong, but they are not complete. In the academy, where the study of Black people has tended to follow the study of Whites, the descriptions and analyses of Black life experiences have been formulated on the models set forth in the studies of White life experiences. The problem with this practice is the obvious one: Black and White life experiences are not the same. Although they are intertwined, they are not mirror images.;The significance of this study resides in the Afrocentric approach used to examine how eight African American women diagnosed five to eighteen years ago, continue to live HIV positive. Afrocentricity represents a philosophical position that originates from an Africa-centered point of reference which defines the life experiences of all people of African descent. Asante describes it as "the most complete philosophical totalization of the African being-at-the-center of her or his existence." In a different context, Asante has designated Afrocentricity as a facet of "centrisim" and defined it as "groundedness which allows the student of human culture investigating African phenomena to view the world from the standpoint of the African" (1992).;The information described and analyzed in this study was obtained through the focused oral histories of eight women living with the HIV/AIDS virus. The central question this dissertation seeks to answer is: What roles do support networks play in survival? For the purpose of the study, support networks are identified as: societal institutions, AIDS organizations, the Black church, the family, personal empowerment, social support and support groups.;This research differs from the existing body of knowledge on HIV positive women because it is the first ethnographic study that allows MV positive African American women in Central Harlem to narrate their experiences, methods and perceptions of survival: the stories are not told about them, they are told by them. The study intends to educate not only other women with the HIV/AIDS virus, but also health professionals, and will add to the existing body of knowledge by augmenting the research that is currently in the field.