EBOOK
About
What do HIV-positive women in Nigeria face as they seek meaningful lives with a deeply discrediting disease? Kathryn A. Rhine uncovers the skillful ways women defuse concerns about their wellbeing and the ability to maintain their households. Rhine shows how this ethic of concealment involves masking their diagnosis, unfaithful husbands, and unsupportive families while displaying their beauty, generosity, and vitality. As Rhine observes, collusion with counselors and support group leaders to deflect stigma, secure respectability, and find love features prominently in the lives of ordinary women who hope for a brighter future as the HIV epidemic continues to expand.
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Reviews
"The Unseen Things is a collection of poignant narratives documenting how HIV positive women in northern Nigeria maintain hope and assert agency while living with a highly stigmatized disease. This is an ethnographic masterpiece, detailing how women embody normalcy, particularly as they seek marriage partners in the aftermath of their diagnosis. The book is especially innovative in its rich detail
Carolyn Sargent, Washington University