How risk and vulnerability become ‘socially embedded’

1. How risk and vulnerability become ‘socially embedded’ insights into the resilient gapbetween awareness and safety in HIV David Plummer Commonwealth/UNESCO Professor HIV Education University of the West Indies St Augustine Trinidad & Tobago

2. the ‘KAP gap’

4. Social embedding of riskgender rolespeer groupseconomic powerstigma & tabooreligion

5. Social embedding of risk IMale gender roles:risky obligations

6. By the age of 10… boys began to realise that toughness, physical strength and sexual dominance, all features of traditional masculinity, were expected of them(Bailey, Branche, McGarrity & Stuart 1998: 53)

7. … there is the expectation that the boys will take risks while girls are encouraged to be passive. (Bailey, Branche, McGarrity & Stuart 1998: 17)

8. manhood is demonstrated by sexual prowess… it is usually measured… by the number of female sexual partners(Brown & Chevannes 1998: 23)

9. For many men, meeting the demands of a male identity is a far greater moral imperative than the virtues of honesty and respect for property and even life. (Chevannes 1999: 11)

10. Social embedding of risk IIMale gender roles: taboos on safety

11. Boys have a real macho image to live up to. If a boy acts in an effeminate way he will be targeted and teased by the other students. (Respondent quoted by Parry 2004: 176)

12. For males, multiple partnerships could become also a matter of status… The term ‘one burner’ applied to a faithful male in some Jamaican communities was a phrase of derision.(Bailey, Branche, McGarrity & Stuart 1998: 65 & 66

13. Someone who did not have as many women as they did was “sick”, “suspected as a buller” or not “the average young black male”.(Crichlow 2004: 206)

14. Social embedding of risk III:peer group dynamics

15. … the peer group…exert influences that are not only greater than the influence of parents, but which contradict those nurtured within the family.(Chevannes 1999: 24)

16. An adolescent boy’s friendsexact an affinity and a loyalty as sacred as the bond ofkinship as strong as the sentiment of religion. They socialise one another, the older members of the group acting as the transmitters of what passes as knowledge, invent new values and meanings.(Chevannes 1999: 30)

17. Sex then was very much in the environment of the young boys and girls… they did pick up a great deal of information from observing their environment and from listening to “people”, particularly the age group just older than themselves. (Bailey, Branche, McGarrity & Stuart 1998: 29)

18. Social embedding of risk IV:economic power and the economies of risk

19. Money was seen as an absolutely vital resource for a male in relationships. Much of his status was given in the equation where money was exchanged for respect, loyalty and sex. (Bailey, Branche, McGarrity & Stuart 1998: 77)

20. Social embedding of risk V:taboo, stigma & discrimination

21. Social embedding of risk VI:religion

22. I found a desperate assurance in my hyper-masculinity through religion, sports, aggressiveness, loudness, having many intimate women friends, and practising occupations or trades constructed as “manly” in my family and the community at large (Crichlow 2004: 190)

23. acknowledgements Thanks to the participants who generously gave their time to inform this research. also to CARICOM, PANCAP, the Commonwealth, the University of the West Indies and UNESCO for assisting this research. to Joel Simpson, Vidyartha Kissoon, Nigel Mathlin, Egbert Felix, Brian-Paul Welsh, Robert Carr, Novlet Reid, Ian Mc Knight, Civilla Kentish, and Kevin Farara for their superb support. And thanks to the Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination, Guyana (SASOD), the Grenada Caribbean HIV/AIDS Partnership (GrenCHAP), the St Vincent and the Grenadines Caribbean HIV/AIDS Partnership (VincyCHAP), The St Kitts and Nevis HIV/AIDS Group, the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition (CVC), Jamaica AIDS Support for Life (JAS), and Children and Community for Change, Jamaica.

24. thank you