Cities and Networks of Viral Epidemics; Responses to HIV-1 in Congo Basin
Moderator: Waafa El-Sadr (Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University)
Amandine Lauro (Univerité Libre de Bruxelles)
“Prostitution, Gender Imbalance, and HIV-1 Emergence in Colonial Kinshasa”
Sexuality has been a key-element to explain the emergence of HIV-1 in Central Africa during the first decades of the 20th century. More specifically, the idea that there were some specific patterns of sexual behavior marked by a culture of frequent partner exchange created and/or reinforced by colonialism and the development of migrant labor that could have facilitated the spread of HIV in the Congo basin has been especially significant in recent studies of HIV emergence. Using a social history perspective, this paper aims at interrogating assumptions about the unbalanced sex-ratio that characterized Kinshasa in the first half of the 20th century and its link to the –alleged- existence of a flourishing "sex-trade" in the region. Based on qualitative evidence drawn from untapped colonial archives, it will critically address what we can –and cannot- know about commercial sex practices in colonial Kinshasa and the ways in which a better articulation of these evolutions to changing patterns of gender relationships and domestic arrangements might contribute to shed light on the complex context and timing of HIV-1 emergence.
