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ASRU's action research agenda originated in 2001 as the Memory Box Project - an intervention designed to help people come to terms with their diagnosis, disclose their HIV-status to their children and begin the process of succession planning. This intervention, which drew its inspiration from pioneering work by Beatrice Ware in Uganda, was designed for a context in which antiretroviral treatment was unavailable. However, as drug prices started to fall sharply, and as more people joined the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in calling for public provision of antiretrovirals, our focus shifted from 'preparing for death', to 'fighting for life'.
One of the key stepping stones in this development was a collaborative project between MSF and ASRU to document the body maps and stories of the A-team.
This collaborative project was known as the 'Long Life' project. It took place in 2002 and 2003 under the leadership of Jonathan Morgan, the then director of the Memory Box Project. The book documents the lives and art of the Bambanani Women's Group, many of which are now within the CSSR as fieldworkers and peer facilitators. The body map art was facilitated by Jane Solomon. The conceptualisation and writing of the book was done by Jonathan Morgan and Kylie Thomas. Kali van der Merwe and Valentina Love facilitated the photography which appears in the book. Contributions were also made by Franciose Louis, Herman Reuter, Eric Goemaere and Zackie Achmat. The book: Long Life: HIV Positive Stories (by Jonathan Morgan and the Bambanani Women's Group) was published by Double Storey, Cape Town in late 2003). It was launched in Cape Town in the National Gallery on 29 November 2003 at an exhibition of the body map art. Funding from the project was obtained from MSF, The Ford Foundation and Pfizer Corporation.
The process of creating body maps and life narratives subsequently formed the basis of the Mapping Our Lives initiative, in which peer facilitators offer workshops in HIV positive support groups.
ASRU's research agenda also reflected the wider struggle for treatment. Nicoli Nattrass and Jolene Skordis argued that it would save the government money (in terms of AIDS-related hospital costs avoided) if a national mother-to-child transmission prevention (MTCTP) programme was implemented. This work formed the basis for two subsequent expert affidavits in support of TAC's successful court case against the government to force it to implement MTCTP. Nicoli Nattrass also collaborated with Nathan Geffen (from TAC), Chris Raubenheimer and Leigh Johnson (from the Centre for Actuarial Research) in a number of papers on the economics of providing antiretroviral treatment for adults. See CSSR working papers 28 and 42. This research formed the ground work for Nicoli Nattrass's book: The Moral Economy of AIDS in South Africa (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004). Click here for the review or here for an interview about the book.
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