RESUMEN

This study examines the role of food and foodways in identity maintenance and formation for Latino individuals in Ithaca, New York. Preliminary results indicate that food provides a physical link that connects individuals to their heritage culture and local communities. Despite variability in the importance that immigrants attribute to food, it remains one of the most resilient tools that informants identified as central to identity formation and maintenance. Food can therefore be a useful tool for examining the degree to which immigrants are maintaining their cultural identity and connectedness with their community.

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RESUMEN

Recently a few vocal health experts have suggested that some of the billions of dollars currently used to prevent and treat HIV and AIDS be reallocated to address more basic problems such as malnutrition, tuberculosis, malaria, and enteric and diarrheal disease caused by lack of access to clean water. While not universally agreed upon, this reassessment of policy priorities acknowledges that there are multiple other health problems that deserve renewed attention from the international community. It also highlights the fact that the impacts of the HIV pandemic are exacerbated by widespread poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition, and gender inequality. Nowhere is this more evident than in sub-Saharan Africa, where multiple epidemics conflate and seriously compromise the survival of individuals and communities. Given the widespread occurrence of famine in sub-Saharan Africa, issues of food and economic security become of paramount importance in efforts to address the region's HIV epidemics. This paper examines the historical, political-economic, and cultural dimensions of the HIV epidemic in the context of the growing problem of food and economic insecurity. Furthermore, using theoretical frameworks that emphasize the dynamic interrelation between HIV/AIDS and food insecurity, we present suggestions for combining traditional HIV-prevention strategies with food production and nutritioneducation programming. In light of the complex interactions between HIV/AIDS and food insecurity and the lack of accessible treatment modalities, such programming could potentially reduce the risk for transmission of HIV through behavioural changes and improved nutritional and immune status, and increase the life expectancy of people living with HIV or AIDS.

RESUMEN

This article focuses on how numerous international nongovernmental organisations (INGOs) have stepped forward to provide services related to HIV and AIDS prevention and treatment in Lesotho. We highlight some widely recognised challenges associated with the INGO approach and describe how people working in that sector in Lesotho experience similar challenges, focusing especially on weak or inadequate monitoring and evaluation (M&E). Partially in response to such weaknesses, Lesotho is implementing its 'Partnership Framework to Support Implementation of the Lesotho National HIV and AIDS Response.' A major goal for this initiative is to strengthen procedures and methods for M&E. Through examination of a partnership that the authors are cultivating with Catholic Relief Services in Lesotho, we discuss some ways that anthropologists can contribute to formulating M&E processes and procedures that can provide sound measures of outcomes and have the potential to inform programme development.