RESUMO
This study explored the focus on youth in Catholic and Evangelical Pentecostal discussions about and responses to HIV and AIDS in Brazil. Key informant, oral history and in-depth interviews revealed a disconnect between young people's views of themselves as leaders in their religious institutions' responses to HIV and other social problems, and adult religious leaders' views of young people as vulnerable and in need of being 'saved'. Religious leaders presented young people as institutional commodities, emphasizing their symbolic value as signs of the health and future of their churches. We explore the unofficial exchange between religious institutions and young people, who benefited from the leadership opportunities and communities provided by their churches and youth groups. We discuss the political economy of youth in religious institutions' responses to HIV and AIDS within the context of Brazil's high levels of religious mobility as well as the broader, global commodification of spirituality and religion.
Assuntos
Catolicismo , Infecções por HIV/prevenção & controle , Protestantismo , Religião e Sexo , Adolescente , Adulto , Antropologia Cultural , Brasil , Humanos , Entrevistas como Assunto , Masculino , Adulto JovemRESUMO
Religious institutions, which contribute to understanding of and mobilization in response to illness, play a major role in structuring social, political, and cultural responses to HIV and AIDS. We used institutional ethnography to explore how religious traditions--Catholic, Evangelical, and Afro-Brazilian--in Brazil have influenced HIV prevention, treatment, and care at the local and national levels over time. We present a typology of Brazil's division of labor and uncover overlapping foci grounded in religious ideology and tradition: care of people living with HIV among Catholics and Afro-Brazilians, abstinence education among Catholics and Evangelicals, prevention within marginalized communities among Evangelicals and Afro-Brazilians, and access to treatment among all traditions. We conclude that institutional ethnography, which allows for multilevel and interlevel analysis, is a useful methodology.