Abstract:
We draw on a study of a church-run community home-based care organization in
Swaziland to explore how individuals living with HIV perceived caregivers‘ impact on
well-being. Our primary concern was to examine how religion, as a heuristic practice of
Christian-based caregiving, was felt to be consequential in a direly underserved region.
Part of a larger medical anthropological project, we conducted semi-structured
interviews with 79 community home-based care clients, of whom half (53%) said they
would have died, some from suicide, without its services. We utilized a critical
phenomenological approach to interpret semantic and latent themes, and explicated
these themes within a ‗healthworld‘ framework. Participants were resolute that caregivers be Christian, less for ideological positioning than for perceived ontological
sameness and ascribed traits: ―telling the truth‖ about treatment, confidentiality, and an
ethos of unconditional love that restored clients‘ desire to live and adhere to treatment.
Findings are intended to help theorize phenomenological meanings of care, morality,
health, and sickness, and to interrogate authoritative biomedically based rationalities
that underwrite most HIV-related global health policy.
