Paper short abstract:

Starting from the concept of `empowerment`, this paper aims to explore the ongoing tension between emic and etic analysis in social psychological as well as in more recent political economy approaches to HIV prevention. In this paper we will discuss possibilities to overcome those frictions. Inspired by the work of the Latin American Collective Health Movement (f.i Almeida & Silva, 1999; Breilh, 2003).

Paper long abstract:

Traditionally, HIV prevention programmes reproduce a discourse that emphasises individual behavioural change. This discourse is based on health promotion and health education models grounded in social psychological theories (Green & Kreuter, 2005). Recent studies in medical anthropology and AIDS focus on the interaction between local culture and local institutions (social representations of body, health, illness, risk, gender, kinship, local economic structure and organization) and national-global political and economic processes (f.i Parker et al., 2000; Schoepf, 2001).

Starting from the concept of 'empowerment', this paper aims to explore the ongoing tension between emic and etic analysis in social psychological as well as in more recent political economy approaches. It will explore questions such as "What value to attach to the "local" problem definitions, including emic analyses of the problem´s context?" and "How does or should the emic analysis interact with the etic problem analysis of health professionals and other experts?"

In this paper we will discuss possibilities to overcome those frictions. Inspired by the work of the Latin American Collective Health Movement (f.i Almeida & Silva, 1999; Breilh, 2003) we initiated a study in which we explored the relationship between expert and the local knowledge in the analysis of HIV/AIDS phenomenon in Cartagena-Colombia. Our study started with a "dialogical ethnography" among men and women living in Cartagena.

In this paper we will present the first results of the fieldwork and discuss the question whether our approach sheds light on the interaction between expert and local knowledge and institutions.