‘Harmful Cultural Practices’ and AIDS

Abstract In this chapter I show how ‘harmful cultural practices’ have emerged as a development issue in global conventions and policies over the past ten years starting with current policies and mapping backwards to the first step taken by the UN in 2001 at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS. In the second section I look at the shift from the global to the national level and demonstrate how international policies have influenced national policy on AIDS and harmful cultural practices in Malawi. I use data collected from interviews and documents to show how the Malawian elite have constructed narratives around AIDS and cultural practices in Malawi; that rural people’s backwardness is to blame for high HIV prevalence rates.