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The (extra)ordinary ethics of being HIV‐positive in rural Papua New Guinea
Author(s) -
Wardlow Holly
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of the royal anthropological institute
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.62
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1467-9655
pISSN - 1359-0987
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9655.12546
Subject(s) - personhood , new guinea , morality , sociology , virtue , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , environmental ethics , virtue ethics , christian ethics , epistemology , philosophy , ethnology , medicine , religious studies , immunology
HIV/AIDS continues to be intimately entwined with the moral domain, and thus a positive diagnosis can cast doubt on a person's moral status. I draw on recent literature in the anthropology of ethics and morality, as well as feminist moral philosophy, to analyse the post‐diagnosis practices of HIV‐positive women in Papua New Guinea as they attempt to recuperate their moral personhood and make their ethical commitments visible to others. I argue that they carve out a repertoire of (extra)ordinary ethics from the ‘ordinary’ domain and that their practices tend towards a deontological ethics, rather than a virtue ethics, orientation.