Articles
HIV-in-Context Research Symposia
The annual HIV-in-Context Research Symposium is the flagship event of the Centre for Research in HIV and AIDS. In these highly interactive two to three day meetings, about a hundred scholars, practitioners, activists, policy makers and students come together to engage across disciplines and sectors on an important dimension of HIV and AIDS in social, systems, and political context. The aim is to initiate or deepen cross-disciplinary research which addresses the drivers and impacts of, and societal responses to, HIV and AIDS.
5th Annual HIV-in-Context Research Symposium
Urbanisation, Inequality and HIV
13 – 15 March 2013
Download the background document
HIV reveals and is produced by social inequalities. It remains highly unevenly distributed across the country and across communities, and is increasingly concentrated in urban centres. HIV can galvanize creative societal responses: through both conflict and co-operation, South Africa has made significant progress in the medical management of HIV. Yet the challenges of HIV and AIDS as a chronic disease requiring lifelong treatment are increasingly clear - particularly with South Africa’s high rates of internal and cross-border mobility and migration. In addition, inequality itself is increasing.
This year's symposium looked beyond biomedicine at some of the social determinants of HIV, and of responses to HIV and AIDS, within and outside the health sector. It examined the links between HIV and AIDS, inequality and the dynamics and impacts of urbanisation – dynamics which play out between settings as people move permanently or temporarily to urban centres, and within the highly unequal spaces constituting South African cities. The particular experience of Cape Town as a destination and transit point on migration trajectories was examined in relation to other cities in South Africa and beyond. Through diverse disciplinary and sectoral lenses, practitioners, researchers, policy makers and civil society activists examined the many ways in which urbanization, inequality and HIV interact and affect people’s lives.
Previous symposia
The first symposium reviewed HIV research across UWC faculties and with key partners – while the following three addressed the founding pillars of the Centre’s work:
- public health and health systems,
- gender and violence, and
- education.
Documents and reports related to each of the past symposia are available through the following links:
The 2nd Annual "HIV In Context" Research Symposium: March 2010.
Public health in the age of HIV: Reflections and Redirections
The 3rd Annual "HIV In Context" Research Symposium: March 2011.
New research in gender, violence and HIV.
The 4th Annual "HIV In Context" Research Symposium: March 2012.
Building an AIDS-free South Africa: The classroom and beyond.
The symposia are supported by grants from the Flemish government through the VLIR-UWC “Dynamics of Building a Better Society” project and by CDC/PEPFAR through the project "To develop human capacity to address HIV in South Africa".