Dissertation Research: Cultural Notions of Gender and Illness in Indonesia

这一奖项授予华盛顿大学圣彼得堡分校。路易支持一位文化人类学专业学生的论文研究。该项目将调查印度尼西亚一个城镇的妇女对艾滋病毒/艾滋病的了解情况。通过对已婚女性、未婚女性和商业性工作者的访谈和人种学观察，学生将评估这些女性对艾滋病传播方式的了解，限制或促进疾病传播的性行为，以及女性与伴侣谈判“安全性行为”的能力。这名学生将对城市地区的女性进行调查，在三组中每组选择60名女性进行更长时间的访谈，并从每组中选择15-20名女性进行不限成员名额的密集讨论，内容包括性别关系、对感染疾病的风险的看法，以及关于性别、性关系和婚姻的一般文化价值观。这项研究很重要，因为它增加了我们对世界这一重要领域的一般专门知识，以及关于妇女对这一区域性传播疾病和艾滋病毒/艾滋病知识的具体信息。该项目将增加我们对女性对这一日益严重的社会问题的异性传播的了解，并将产生关于女性自我认知能力的宝贵知识，以从事风险较低的行为。这样的理解不仅在印度尼西亚，而且在女性有类似理解和限制的其他地方，对于设计限制问题传播的计划都是有价值的。

This award to Washington University-St. Louis supports the dissertation research of a student of cultural anthropology. The project will investigate the knowledge possessed by women in an Indonesian town about HIV/AIDS. Through interviews and ethnographic observations of married women, never-married women, and commercial sex workers, the student will assess the women's knowledge of how AIDS spreads, sexual practices which limit or facilitate the spread of the disease, and the women's abilities to negotiate `safe-sex` practices with their partners. The student will survey women in an urban area, select sub-samples of 60 women in each of the three groups to conduct longer interviews with, and select a sub-sample of 15-20 women from each group for open-ended, intensive discussions on gender relations, perceptions of risk of contracting disease, and general cultural values about gender and sexual relations and marriage. This research is important because it adds to our general expertise about this important area of the world, as well as specific information about women's knowledge of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS in this region. The project will increase our understanding of what women know about heterosexual transmission of this growing social problem, and will produce valuable knowledge of women's self-perceptions of their own abilities to engage in less-risky behaviors. This sort of understanding will be valuable in designing programs to limit the spread of the problem not only in Indonesia, but in other places where women have comparable understandings and constraints.