Isak Niehaus is a senior lecturer in anthropology at Brunel University London, where he currently co-ordinates the MSC program in Medical Anthropology. He has previously held teaching positions at the Universities of the Witwatersrand and Pretoria in South Africa, and lectured at several other universities in Europe and the United States. His previous publications include Witchcraft, Power and Politics (co-authored with Eliazaar Mohlala and Kally Shokaneo, 2001) and Witchcraft and a Life in the New South Africa (2012).
A brilliant and vivid ethnographic account of how people's understanding and treatment of HIV/AIDS intersects with existing social and symbolic meanings around disease, death, witchcraft, healing strategies and everyday social interactions in Bushbuckridge, South Africa. * Alcinda Honwana, author of Youth and Revolution in Tunisia * Building on some three decades of experience, Niehaus offers a superb analysis of the South African HIV/AIDS epidemic. A necessary reminder of how anthropological questions of kinship and misfortune remain highly significant to any understanding of HIV/AIDS. * Julie Livingston, New York University * Niehaus returns us to the fundamentals of anthropology, offering a subtle but sharp critique of the Foucauldian turn in health. This is a superb ethnography - among its contributions the best critique of mainstream views on AIDS orphans I have seen. * Mark Hunter, author of Love in the Time of AIDS * Niehaus captures the diversity of experiences of those living with HIV/AIDS in Bushbuckridge, South Africa. He reminds us that effective community engagement and efforts to counter stigma must be at the forefront of the global response to HIV/AIDS. * Peter Piot, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine *