Affirming Human Diversity and Embodiment in the Face of HIV

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the work of leading African feminist biblical scholar and theologian, Musa W. Dube from Botswana. It reconstructs and examines how Dube, from her activist-scholarly work on issues of gender and HIV/AIDS, has also come to advocate a progressive approach to questions of sexual diversity. The chapter locates Dube’s approach in her broader theological project that is informed by eco-feminist and liberation theologies, and that seeks to read the Bible in a quest for life and justice. It particularly identifies the biblical concept of the ‘Body of Christ’ and the indigenous African notion of ubuntu as cornerstones of Dube’s prophetic call to embrace and affirm human embodiment, both physically and communally, in the context of stigma, discrimination and injustice.