Embodying HIV and AIDS Information: Experiences of Serodiscordant Couples

Abstract:This paper aims to illuminate how serodiscordant couples were informed by their own and other's bodies in their experience of HIV/AIDS information. The lived body is the contact we have with the world. Our knowledge about others is through their bodies. In addition, illness is experienced first through the lived body. Therefore, when doctors want to learn about the illness, they extract information from the lived body. In this study, we investigated how serodiscordant couples experience HIV and AIDS information in Malawi. In-depth interviews were conducted in the homes of twenty-one serodiscordant couples and three individuals who had separated from their partners. Participants for the study were selected purposively. Data analysis was carried out using Max van Manen's phenomenological approach to generate descriptions and interpretations of the couples' experiences of HIV and AIDS information. The study found that the life-world is the overarching context of experiencing HIV and AIDS information and identified five structures of the life-world of serodiscordant couples: lived body, lived space, lived others, lived time, and spirituality. HIV and AIDS are first experienced through the lived body, and bodies were informational within the lived spaces. Thus, this research contributes to the study of HIV and AIDS information by revealing the lived body as an important source. It also identifies that the body can be an ambiguous source, since HIV and AIDS information available from the lived body may be ignored or misinterpreted by the serodiscordant couples and by those they interact with.