Description
Book SynopsisAnthropologist Alyson O’Daniel analyses the abstract debates about health policy for the sickest and most vulnerable Americans, as well as the services designated to help them, by taking readers into the daily lives of poor African American women living with HIV disease at the advent of the 2006 Treatment Modernization Act.
Trade Review"At a time when the lives of African American women surviving with HIV are not commonly illuminated,
Holding On provides an important addition to the anthropological and public health literature."—Martina Thomas,
Medical Anthropology Quarterly"
Holding On is an important piece of medical anthropology."—Jack David Eller, Anthropology Review Database
"
Holding On: African American Women Surviving HIV/AIDS is lucid and insightful about the role of health providers, particularly in poor communities, and the text highlights the marginalization of women of color in addressing health issues. The book will serve as an excellent read for graduate and undergraduates in the social sciences, particularly social workers, and those concentrating on gender politics, history, political science, and public health policy."Kofi Johnson,
International Social Science Review“
Holding On explores crucial aspects of the health disparities debate: how attempts to ease the impact of serious chronic conditions often create as many problems as they set out to solve and how legislation focusing on marginalized groups—especially people of color—can generate unintended consequences. O’Daniel tackles these problems while offering a gripping account of how HIV-positive African American women navigate the many challenges they face.”—Sabrina Marie Chase, author of
Surviving HIV/AIDS in the Inner City: How Resourceful Latinas Beat the Odds “
Holding On is a new portrait of American poverty—a social, political, and economic condition rooted in an unequal, unfair, and unsustainable system. Alyson O’Daniel reveals the lives that are at stake in such a system, and the struggle of poor African American women to survive it with dignity.”—Alisse Waterston, author of
My Father’s Wars: Migration, Memory, and the Violence of a CenturyTable of ContentsList of Tables
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
Introduction: Hidden in Plain Sight
1. "Other" Stories of Social Policy and hiv Survival
2. The Local Landscape of hiv/aids Care
3. Urban Poverty Three Ways
4. The Pedagogy of Policy Reform
5. Using "Survival" to Survive, Part I
6. Using "Survival" to Survive, Part II
Conclusion: Life beyond Survival
Appendix 1: Demographic Characteristics of Study Participants at Time of First Interview
Appendix 2: Study Participants’ Analytic Categories
Appendix 3: Glossary of Service Program Acronyms
Notes
References
Index
