Excerpts from An Epidemic of Uncertainty: Navigating HIV and Young Adulthood in Malawi
The Department of Sociology is excited to host Dr. Jenny Trinitapoli on September 3 for our academic launch and the first lecture in our 2024-25 Distinguished Speaker Series.
Dr. Trinitapoli, Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago, will present a lecture titled “Excerpts from An Epidemic of Uncertainty: Navigating HIV and Young Adulthood in Malawi.”
ABSTRACT
Dr. Jenny Trinitapoli
An Epidemic of Uncertainty advances a new framework for studying social life by emphasizing something social scientists routinely omit from their theories, models, and measures–what people know they don’t know.
Taking Malawi’s ongoing AIDS epidemic as an entry point, I show that despite admirable declines in new HIV infections and AIDS-related mortality, an epidemic of uncertainty persists; at any given point in time, fully half of Malawian young adults don’t know their HIV status.
Reckoning with the impact of this uncertainty within the bustling trading town of Balaka, I argue that HIV-related uncertainty is measurable, pervasive, and impervious to biomedical solutions, with consequences that expand into multiple domains of life, including relationship stability, fertility, and health.
Over the duration of a groundbreaking decade-long longitudinal study, rich survey data combined with simple demographic analyses and poignant ethnographic vignettes depict how individual lives and population patterns unfold against the backdrop of changing epidemic.
Even as HIV is transformed from a progressive, fatal disease to a chronic and manageable condition, the accompanying epidemic of uncertainty remains fundamental to understanding social life in this part of the world.
Jenny Trinitapoli is professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, where she directs the Center for International Social Science Research. She received her BA from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and her PhD in sociology from the University of Texas at Austin.
Find out more about Dr. Trinitapoli here.
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ACCESSIBILITY
We strive to host inclusive, accessible events that enable all individuals to engage fully. To be respectful of those with allergies and environmental sensitivities, we ask that you please refrain from wearing strong fragrances. To request an accommodation or for inquiries about accessibility, please contact us through the RSVP form or email us at soci.communications@ubc.ca.
