Mapping Our Lives: A Post-Treatment Rollout Initiative

Now that the long-awaited treatment roll-out has begun, ASRU's research and outreach agenda has shifted to a concern with the social context of AIDS. In particular, we are interested in exploring the social forces which affect people's decisions to disclose their HIV-status to others, and which affect their ability to adhere to long-term treatment. In this regard, the A-team's 'Mapping Our Lives' initiative is proving to be an important site of learning. Mapping Our Lives workshops take place in support groups and are designed to encourage critical reflection on the social context facing participants, and their responses to it. The workshops are both informed by, and in turn inform, social science research.
 
This 'Mapping Our Lives' initiative is best known for producing life-sized 'body maps'. A-team members take their own body maps to support groups to talk about their experience of illness, treatment, and disclosure. They then show the participants how to make their own body maps. In addition to this form of art/narrative therapy, the Mapping Our Lives initiative also includes workshops on 'social maps' and 'journey maps' to stimulate critical discussion about the social challenges posed by HIV/AIDS. Details are available in the Mapping Manual (Xhosa version here) which sketches the different therapeutic and art techniques that have been developed through experience in working with HIV support groups. Colin Almeleh (who is the co-ordinator of the Mapping Out Lives initiative) was the main author of the most recent version.
 
The various workshops offered as part of Mapping Our Lives are constantly being reassessed and changed in response to feedback by the A-team and participants in workshops. We draw on advice and ideas from sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists and other social scientists when designing different exercises. It is this unique and innovative interaction between academics and outreach workers that makes Mapping Our Lives such a dynamic project.
 
For more information please email Kathleen.Forbes@uct.ac.za or click here