Pathways among Human Security, Gender, and HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Traditional security theory has treated health concerns as isolated threats to national interest, separated analytically from their broader social and political economy causes and contexts. If the concept of human security is restricted to these same parameters, as in the narrow definition of human security as "freedom from fear," and health is considered to be an issue of security only when overt physical, especially military, violence is involved, the explanatory as well as emancipatory potential of the concept is diminished. However, a broad concept of human security that encompasses "freedom from want" offers a conceptual space for identifying and analyzing the relevant social, political and economic connections that characterize contemporary global health problems such as HIV/AIDS. Within the conceptual framework of human security, a gender analysis that illuminates the gender dimensions of human security - in terms of individual disease risk, access to treatment, and impacts on livelihood - is critical to providing insights to guide effective policy on HIV/AIDS. Also, policies need to take into account the multiple social, cultural, economic and political factors that determine the disease pathways.