The construction of the Aids patient in South African bio-medical discourse

Abstract

The humanised Aids patient increasingly finds itself a part of mainstream popular rhetoric. There was a time however, when the Aids patient was no more than a disease ravaged corpse without rights. Conventional histories and analyses tend to gloss over this fact, or argue that the new, authentic patient is a triumph of wisdom over brute ignorance, fear and superstition. Such accounts overlook their own role and the part played by the bio-medical sciences in constructing the Aids patient. This thesis, in contradistinction, traces the Aids patient's portrayal in South African bio-medical discourses, applying to it the work of Michel Foucault. In doing so the dynamic interactions of power and knowledge are brought under the spotlight.