Abstract
Despite the urgency of improving an understanding of sexual cultures in the face of a
globally devastating HIV epidemic, methodological reflection and innovation has been
conspicuously absent from qualitative research in recent years. Findings from
fieldwork on condom use among young people in Mozambique confirm the need to
remain alert to the ideological and linguistic bias of applied methods. Interviewing
young people about their sexuality using a conventional health discourse resulted in
incorrect or socially acceptable answers rather than accurate information about their
sexual behaviour. Young people's resistance to enquiry, the paper argues, is due to
ideological contradictions between their sexual culture and slang, on the one hand, and
Western health discourses associated with colonial and post-colonial opposition to
traditional culture and languages, on the other. Mixing colloquial Portuguese and
changana sexual slang is constructed around ideas of safedeza and pleasure, while
dominant health discourses address sexuality as both ‘risky' and ‘dangerous'. In order
to gain a deeper understanding of sexual cultures and to make HIV prevention efforts
relevant to young people, it is suggested that researchers and policy makers approach
respondents with a language that is sensitive to the local ideological and linguistic
context.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Culture, Health and Sexuality |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| Pages (from-to) | 655-668 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| ISSN | 1369-1058 |
| Publication status | Published - 2009 |
