People’s Power: Local Agency among HIV AND AIDS Marginalized Groups in Mbozi District, Tanzania, 1980s-2017

Abstract

This study examines the Mbozi society`s responses to the plight of marginal groups attributed to HIV/AIDS for the past three decades. The groups in question include people suffering from and or living with HIV/AIDS, AIDS related widows, AIDS orphans, and the elderly caring AIDS orphans. Rather than focusing synchronically on the responses from the international community, government and Non-governmental organizations as has been done by many studies, this study diachronically concentrates on the ordinary people`s responses at the grass-roots level. It argues that to cope with their plight, marginal groups associated with HIV/AIDS engage in different livelihood strategies including wage-labour, begging, sex work, petty trade, income generating groups, self-help groups, farming as well as enlisting family and neighbourhood support. By drawing on documents and interviews with people at the grass-roots level, this study not only brings to the fore the voices of the marginalized and people`s agency and resilience in the context of HIV/AIDS pandemic but it also adds to the growing body of knowledge on social exclusion in Tanzania in particular and Africa as a whole.