Choosing Rights: The Puzzle of the Rights Frame in HIV Activism
Why do African civil society groups conducting HIV advocacy choose to use the language of human rights? HIV activists are early innovators in the expansion of rights discourse into health advocacy, drawing on rights instead of more traditional frames of development or public health, even in places where rights are understood as foreign and confrontational.
Method:
Using a comparative case-study approach, this project examined nine local civil society organisations selected from countries (Ghana, Uganda, South Africa, Botswana) in the three sub-regions of sub-Saharan Africa (West Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa). Within these countries civil society groups were identified with variation in regards to their use or non-use of the rights frame. I conducted 145 semi-structured interviews alongside document analysis and naturalistic observation.
Findings:
I found that organizational adoption of rights is heavily influenced by leadership, and by centralised organisational structures which allow for a high level of interaction with leaders within the organisation. Within groups that made dominant use of rights in advocacy, a strong personal belief in the rights frame was both common and critical. The most important impact of rights language was understood as empowerment at the individual level, rather than as a rallying call for mobilisation, or as a legal tool. Rights were seen as transforming an individual’s relationship with the state and enabling them to seek and claim health care from a position of strength and entitlement. In contrast, in groups with limited or no rights use, need-based claims highlighting vulnerability were dominant.
Knowledge Sharing and Outputs:
I have presented this work in person to several participating organisation, shared summaries of the research with all participating organisations and given each a copy of the resulting book. I have presented this work at universities in South Africa, Botswana, the UK and Canada and at multiple national and international conferences.
Kenyon, Kristi. 2012. “Reasons for Rights: A Qualitative Approach to Rights Use Among HIV Advocacy Groups,” inBeyond the law: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Human Rights, ed. Frans Viljoen (Pretoria, South Africa: Pretoria University Law Press), 67- 94.
Zivi, K. 2019. "Resilience and Contagion: Invoking Human Rights in African HIV Advocacy by Kristi Kenyon (review)". Human Rights Quarterly, 41(1): 243-249. Doi: 10.1353/hrq.2019.0021
Moreau, J. 2018. "Resilience and Contagion: Invoking Human Rights in African HIV Advocacy Kristi Heather Kenyon Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2017". Canadian Journal of Political Science, 1-2. doi:10.1017/S000842391800094X
Ferguson, L. 2018. "Resilience and contagion: invoking human rights in African HIV advocacy." (monograph) Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des études africaines, doi: 10.1080/00083968.2018.1462906
Copyright Kristi Heather Kenyon 2021, all rights reserved.