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National Science Foundation Award #0551463

Dissertation Research: Governmental Decision-Making and Uncertainty: A study of the AIDS Epidemic in South Africa and India

Investigator(s):

Stephen Hilgartner (PI)

Sponsor:

Cornell University - Endowed, NY 14853 6072555014

Start Date/Expiration Date

2006-02-01 to 2007-01-31 (amended 2006-01-31)

Awarded Amount to Date:

$12,000

Abstract: This Science and Society Dissertation Research Improvement Grant in the Social Studies of Science, Engineering and Technology will compare AIDS policies and politics in India and South Africa to ask the question: why have these postcolonial, economically developing nations often foregrounded scientific uncertainty in their policies, often going against international scientific consensus? How have these states constructed the meaning and significance of scientific uncertainty? How has the emphasis on uncertainty transformed state political power? To answer these questions, the dissertation research will investigate a series of debates and controversies in India's and South Africa's AIDS policies from 1994 to 2004. In the most dramatic instance, in 1999, the South African president Thabo Mbeki shocked the world by questioning whether the virus HIV was truly the cause of AIDS. While not outright rejecting the HIV-causation theory, he stressed that there were still big uncertainties in the science around AIDS and the cause of the disease had not been conclusively determined. Before and since that spectacular controversy, a number of smaller debates have surrounded and continue to surround the South African government's AIDS policies. In India, in the same time period, there have been other, albeit far less dramatic, incidents in which the government has foregrounded scientific uncertainty. In a prominent example, the government questioned the efficacy of drugs widely used in other countries to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission. These debates will be investigated using a combination of interviews and documentary resources. Fieldwork in South Africa is currently underway and is expected to be completed by December 2005. The NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant is being requested for fieldwork in India. This research will seek to extend Science Studies scholarship by examining how the relationship of science and the nation-state is affected by postcoloniality and the imperatives of economic development. Its intellectual merit will additionally lie in its two-nation comparative analysis of how a discourse of scientific uncertainty is not only affected by but also transforms state power and politics. The United Nations estimates that more than 20 million people have already died from AIDS-related illnesses. Nowhere in the world is the epidemic larger than in South Africa, which has an estimated 5.3 million HIV-infected people, and in India, which has an estimated 5.1 million infected people. (UNAIDS 2004) The broader impact of this research will lie in its contribution to understanding the macropolitical and policy dynamics around this massive epidemic.

NSF Org:

SES - Division of Social and Economic Sciences

Award Number:

0551463

Award Instrument:

Standard Grant

Program Manager:

John P. Perhonis
SES Division of Social and Economic Sciences
SBE Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences

NSF Program(s):

SOC STUDIES OF SCI, ENG & TECH

Field Application(s):

Human Subjects

Program Reference Code(s):

COMMUNICATIONS PROGRAM, 9179

Program Element Code(s):

7567