The Colloquium on the Global South will present a panel and discussion on "Challenging the HIV/AIDS Paradigm: Perspectives from the Global North and Global South". The presentation will take place in 305 York Lanes on Wednesday, Nov. 8, from 2:30 to 4:30pm.
The International AIDS Conference in Toronto which took place in August, brought together specialists with a diversity of positions on HIV/AIDS. That event, and an earlier conference on Gender, Child Survival and HIV/AIDS: From Evidence to Policy at York University last May, underscored the differences in the way the disease is perceived and addressed in the Global North and the Global South. In this panel, researchers currently working on HIV/AIDS from different disciplinary perspectives share results from ongoing projects. Presentations raise questions about connections and disconnections between the Global North and the Global South in approaches to prevention, treatment and policy. How does the existence of HIV/AIDS intersect with broader questions about gender, poverty and power, and with research agendas in health policy, international development, and economic change?
Presenters include Rebecca Rogerson, a registered traditional African healer; sociology Professor Eric Mykhalovskiy; Tamara Daly, a researcher in the School of Health Policy & Management; and Penny Van Esterik, professor of anthropology at York University. Presentations will raise questions about connections and disconnections between the Global North and the Global South in approaches to prevention, treatment and policy.
Organizer and Chair Penny Van Esterik has longstanding interests in anthropological approaches to advocacy communication. Her past research and publications have concerned infant feeding among urban poor in developing countries, Theravada Buddhism in Southeast Asia and North America, nutritional anthropology, gender and development, and maternal and child health. Her most recent research project, titled "Risks, Rights and Regulation: Communicating about Risks and Infant Feeding", examines problems surrounding advocacy communication about risk and infant feeding, in the face of commerciogenic chemical contamination and the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Eric Mykhalovskiy’s primary research interest is the social organization of health knowledge. His recent research includes studies of the interface of biomedical and experiential knowledges in the context of HIV/AIDS, published in the journals Critical Public Health and Social Theory & Health and elsewhere, as well as studies of formal discourses of health knowledge. In particular his work in health services research and evidence-based medicine has been published in Social Science & Medicine and Health. He is currently principal investigator of a SSHRC-funded study on the relationship between lay and biomedical knowledge in HIV/AIDS, and is co-investigator of a SSHRC-funded study on interspecies health with researchers at the University of Calgary and McGill University. He is also working with Lorna Weir, a researcher at York University, on a study of global health surveillance. He holds a Canadian Institutes of Health Research New Investigator Award for his work in HIV.
Professor Tamara Daly’s research interests are in the areas of gender and health; health care work; comparative health policy, and the role of heath care non-profits. Her current funded research projects investigate changes to the organization and delivery of women’s health services in Toronto; health restructuring in the long-term care sector; and the emotional and social support needs and formal and informal care resources available to Toronto women with HIV.
Rebecca Rogerson is a registered traditional African healer (isangoma). After the completion of her training in Soweto, South Africa, Rogerson worked as a traditional healer in Southern Africa for more than a decade. As a CUSO cooperant from 2001-2003, she initiated HIV/AIDS programs on community, medical and national policy levels. Her work as both an activist and a practitioner has earned her numerous international awards. In her most recent position with ACHAP (a joint project between Merck Pharmaceuticals, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Government of Botswana), she developed a national traditional healer HIV/AIDS program. Rogerson has conducted research and presented on traditional African medicine in academic, medical, community based and private sectors. She is currently a board member with Toronto-based and Southern African-based NGOs. She maintains a private practice in Toronto, focusing on wellness for continental and diasporic Africans. She begins her MA in interdisciplinary studies at York University in 2007.
This event is co-sponsored by the York Institute for Health Research (YIHR) and the School of Health Policy & Management (SHPM).
The University Colloquium on the Global South is an open space for debate and critical inquiry for students, faculty members, NGOs, social activists and policy makers. Colloquia are free and do not require pre-registration.
For information or to register for updates, visit the University Consortium on the Global South Web site or call Elena Cirkovic at ext. 55237.