Rollins Faculty Authors Chapter in New Book About HIV/AIDS

Claudia E. Ordóñez, adjunct assistant professor in the Hubert Department of Global Health, authored a chapter in the newly released book, Living with HIV in Post-Crisis Times, Beyond the Endgame (Lexington Books, August 2021), edited by David A. B. Murray. Ordóñez’s chapter, titled, “Coordination of Medical Pluralism in Public HIV Health Care in South Africa: Shifting to an Alliance Framework with Traditional Health Practitioners,” is the result of over a decade of experience in HIV research collaborations in South Africa.

A history of colonial and post-colonial bio-medical systems ignoring, discrediting, and trivializing the contributions of traditional health practitioners is countered by the chapter’s advocacy for allyship as a respectful and effective strategy for de-colonizing public health collaborations with traditional health practitioners in South Africa.

What others are saying about the book:

Through rich ethnographies of the response to HIV in countries around the globe, this volume forcefully demonstrates the profound limitation of Global North assumptions about the normalization of HIV. The book is a potent reminder of the ongoing struggles faced by communities of people living with HIV, the limitations of biomedical ‘solutions’ to HIV/AIDS, and the social, political, and economic inequalities in the global HIV/AIDS response. It makes an indelible contribution to critical social science understandings of HIV in our present. 

— Eric Mykhalovskiy, York University