Globalisation, Inequality, HIV/AIDS and the Intimacies of Self

Abstract

The HIV/AIDS epidemic has deep historical roots. Its impacts indicate a long, history-changing trajectory. The epidemic must be seen against this broad background. In contrast to previous generations, and from the vantage point of the twenty-first century, we can think about the epidemic in its full waveform. We can discern some of its deepest origins and reflect on its distant effects. There are lessons to be learned, not just about this disease, but about health, well-being and development as well. It is the first global epidemic of which we have been commonly conscious. It may be the epidemic that enables us to respond to the need for a common global public health. The epidemic makes us think how to bend global forces to provide more ‘goods’ for more human beings, and in areas beyond what is usually thought of as ‘health’.

In every possible way the essential public health trusts between authorities, science, medicine and the global populace were violated during the 1994 plague outbreak in India.

(Garret, 2000, p. 48).

Even the most natural action of all — the inhaling of clean air — ultimately presupposes a revolution in the industrial world order.

(Beck, 2000b, p. 168)