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Title
Religion as a double-edged sword: The position of Christian churches in and around Stellenbosch in communicating about HIV/Aids and in dealing with HIV/Aids stigma |
Full text
http://scripties.let.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/root/Master/DoorstroomMasters/Communicatie-enInfor/2013/DeKruijkM./ |
Date
2013 |
Author(s)
De Kruijk, M. (Mardoeka) |
Abstract
South Africa is estimated to have approximately 5,6 million people living with HIV. Although the Aids situation in South Africa has improved in recent years, there are still thousands of people dying of Aids each year. According to numerous studies in the field of HIV/Aids prevention, stigma around HIV/Aids forms a determining factor in the combat against the illness. People often experience barriers to go for counselling and testing (VCT), due to possible disadvantageous outcomes. Moreover, if they are aware of their HIV-status, they are often afraid to disclose their status to family and friends, because of the stigma that is attached to HIV/Aids. Stigma manifests itself in many different ways, but it mostly includes the marginalization or discrimination of people with a certain 'deviance' (e.g. an illness, a handicap, an addiction, etc.) Particularly in the case of a severe illness, such as Aids, people are scared to get infected by HIV-positive persons. Another source of stigma is that people living with HIV/Aids are considered to be responsible for their illness, in terms of sexual immoral behaviour. The stigmatizing attitude towards people with HIV/Aids hampers the HIV-prevention and care for Aids-patients. It restrains both stigmatized people and those who stigmatize from getting tested. This has had a negative impact on the Aids epidemic in South Africa. Over the last decade the role of faith-based organizations in addressing HIV/Aids stigma has been increasingly examined in the HIV/Aids literature. Religious leaders are highly trusted in South African communities and hold a significant amount of power and influence in addressing the HIV/AIDS stigma. Beside their religious function, churches frequently function as social organizations. Due to the extensive social networks of churches, their tendency to help people, and the existing social trust within many congregations, churches are in the position to make an impact on social problems, such as combating HIV/Aids. However, church leaders can also hamper HIV-prevention and aggravate stigma, by means of ambiguous communication messages about sexuality and HIV/Aids. The present study is aimed to discover the position of Christian churches in and around Stellenbosch, South Africa, in dealing with HIV/Aids stigma. The following research question was formulated: In which respects does the HIV/Aids communication between Christian churches and their members in and around Stellenbosch encourage or discourage HIV/Aids stigma? Answers to this question were gathered by means of a qualitative study that entailed semi-structured interviews with fifteen different church leaders from churches in Stellenbosch and its surrounding areas. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and subsequently analysed using a Grounded Theory approach: open coding, axial coding and selective coding. These different coding phases led to a narrative description of each examined church, which explained the most essential concepts and structures regarding HIV/Aids communication, stigma and sexuality. In a meta-analysis the results of the fifteen individual analyses were compared and schematized. The main outcomes were the following: 9 of the 15 examined churches are currently communicating about HIV/Aids to a certain extent; 3 of the churches are currently involved with HIV/Aids-related activities, such as home-based care, counselling, testing and teaching about HIV/Aids stigma. Furthermore, 7 churches are involved with HIV/Aids in terms of a social project; 7 churches indicated that their congregation considers HIV/Aids as an illness that only affects other people; in 5 churches the church leaders stated that their members are saturated with HIV/Aids messages and tired to hear about the issue; in 5 of the studied churches, the official view of the church on sexuality hampered the HIV/Aids communication in the church, whereas in 4 of the churches, according to the interviewed church leaders, the vision of the church members on sexuality hinders the HIV/Aids communication. Finally, 11 of the 15 churches indicated that they would want to fight the HIV/Aids epidemic in the future. In conclusion, 11 churches have indicated they want to do something in the battle against Aids, but only 9 of those are currently communicating about the subject. This implies that two examined churches that are hardly involved with HIV/Aids communication currently, still wish to improve their HIV/Aids communication in the future. Due to the diverse results of the different churches regarding their HIV/Aids communication and their manner of dealing with stigma, it is difficult to give a univocal answer to the research question. Nevertheless, three main tendencies in the position of the examined churches regarding HIV/Aids stigma were found. The first tendency concerns the churches that are currently actively discouraging the HIV/Aids stigma by means of HIV/Aids communication and HIV/Aids involvement. These churches support people living with HIV/Aids (PLWHA) actively, and communicate about HIV/Aids with their members to address the stigma around HIV/Aids. These three churches are: Vlaeberg Congregation, Stellenbosch Gemeente and Stellenbosch United Church Kayamandi. The second tendency shows the opposite situation: it concerns the churches that are actively encouraging the HIV/Aids stigma at present due to the condemnation of people who are different. These churches follow the rules of their scripture very strictly and have a low acceptance of people that show deviant behaviour or characteristics. These extreme viewpoints on HIV/Aids and sexuality can increase stigma in a congregation. The following churches were found to actively encourage the HIV/Aids stigma: The Uniting Reformed Church Kayamandi and the Zion Christian Church (ZCC). In between these extreme poles lies the third tendency regarding HIV/Aids stigma. The majority of the examined congregations takes a rather passive position towards the Aids issue and most churches keep silent. This tendency is fairly vague and churches are actually neither encouraging nor discouraging the HIV/Aids stigma. However, by taking a passive and rather silent position, these churches are in fact perpetuating the stigma around HIV/Aids. In order of being 'less passive' to 'more passive' the following churches were found to perpetuate HIV/Aids stigma: Stellenbosch Methodist Church, Jamestown Society; Stellenbosch Methodist Circuit; Anglican Church Sibanye; Uniting Reformed Church Stellenbosch; Stellenbosch Welgelegen; Stellenbosch Moederkerk; Stellenbosch Catholic Church; Shofar Christian Church and St Paul's Church Stellenbosch. The extent to which the churches were found to be more or less involved with HIV/Aids and HIV/Aids stigma are explained by the following causes: the sexuality issue, the vision that HIV/Aids is passé, that people have a certain Aids-fatigue and finally the view on HIV/Aids as a social project. One limitation of the present study was the one-sided target group; solely church leaders were interviewed. It would be interesting for future studies to conduct interviews with church members as well, in order to gain a more complete understanding of the HIV/Aids communication in the churches. Furthermore, due to the qualitative approach that was taken in this study, the outcomes cannot easily be generalized to other churches in South Africa or elsewhere. Hence, more research should be done in other (and more) churches, preferably throughout other provinces in South Africa as the present study was done in Western Cape, one of the provinces with the lowest HIV-prevalence in the country. Although this research was limited to fifteen churches in one specific area, it sheds new insights on how churches can influence the HIV/Aids epidemic through stigmatization. Despite the fact that the Aids situation in South Africa has improved over the past twenty years, people are still becoming infected with HIV, people are still stigmatized and people are still dying from Aids. Future research could provide new understandings of the role of churches in reducing HIV/Aids stigma in order to be able to advise faith-based organizations on this issue. |
Language
en |
Repository
Groningen - University of Groningen
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Added to C-A: 2014-02-25;16:11:01 |
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