Infected Kin: Orphan Care and AIDS in Lesotho

Medical Anthropology

by Ellen Block, Will McGrath

AIDS has devastated communities across southern Africa. In Lesotho, where a quarter of adults are infected, the wide-ranging implications of the disease have been felt in every family, disrupting key aspects of social life. In Infected Kin, Ellen Block and Will McGrath argue that AIDS is fundamentally a kinship disease, examining the ways it transcends infected individuals and seeps into kin relations and networks of care. While much AIDS scholarship has turned away from the difficult daily realities of those affected by the disease, Infected Kin uses both ethnographic scholarship and creative nonfiction to bring to life both the joys and struggles of the Basotho people at the heart of the AIDS pandemic. The result is a book accessible to wide readership, yet built upon scholarship and theoretical contributions that ensure Infected Kin will remain relevant to anyone interested in anthropology, kinship, global health, and care. 

Genres: School

246 pages, Hardcover

Published May 17, 2019

Reviews

[Elise Marrah · Rating 3 out of 5]

read for anthro

[BB · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a stunning book, beautifully and evocatively written, capturing the intimate details of everyday life in a society under rapid social change. Block and McGrath retain their separate voices throughout. Each chapter starts with a lively story -- often uproariously funny, though sometimes desperately sad -- by McGrath, who's a creative nonfiction writer. Then the chapters transition into Block's voice, as we see how a trained ethnographer explores the same dynamics as McGrath did in his opening anecdote. The result is a brilliant, multivocal exploration of how AIDS affects a rural mountain community where family (and especially the ideology of patrilineality: care-giving passed on through the father's family line) remains the central organizing feature of social life. But as the authors show, despite the ideology of patrilineality, in practice AIDS is transforming rural Lesotho into what is increasingly a matrilineal society, with surprising consequences for children. Infected Kin also provides one of the strongest discussions I've read of the structural reasons why rural Africans might not get tested (or seek treatment) for HIV / AIDS: it weaves together an intimate understanding of Basotho culture with discussions of witchcraft, traditional healing, religion, and medical pluralism to show why avoiding testing might in fact be a reasonable course of action. I strongly recommend the book, both for its powerful writing and for the crucial lessons it imparts about public health.

[Elizabeth Gill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learned a ton from this one

[Irene · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a challenge in a GR group to read a book set in Lesotho. Of the few I could get my hands on, this seemed the least technical. The author communicated this anthropological study in a clear fashion which I was able to understand. It looked at the ways traditional family structures were impacted by and also impacted the care-giving of those with AIDS, particularly children.