HIV in contemporary Vietnam : an anthropology of development

Abstract

HIV officially arrived in Vietnam with the reporting of the first case in December 1990. All available research pointed to the fact that Vietnam was about to become part of the AIDS pandemic. Through the complex, dynamic exchanges of discourses between development agencies, HIV prevention groups and governments, the 'threat' of HIV and AIDS was created. 1 At the same time, Vietnam was experiencing rapid and extreme social and economic changes. This thesis explores the modalities through which the threat of HIV and AIDS has been socially constructed in contemporary Vietnam. It was a time when Vietnam increased its efforts to modernise and become once again part of the global economy and thus it was especially vulnerable to particular readings of the dominant global discourses about the disease.