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Social inequalities, sexual tourism and HIV in Cartagena, Colombia: an ethnographic study

BACKGROUND: Cartagena, Colombia’s main port on the Caribbean Coast, reported an HIV incidence of 7.5 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2007 with 90.0% transmission by heterosexual contact and 70 identified as women with a stable partner. Studies across Colombia illustrate that HIV infection relates to soci...

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Autores principales: Quevedo-Gómez, M. C., Krumeich, A., Abadía-Barrero, C. E., van den Borne, H. W.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7414756/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32770984
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-09179-2
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author Quevedo-Gómez, M. C.
Krumeich, A.
Abadía-Barrero, C. E.
van den Borne, H. W.
author_facet Quevedo-Gómez, M. C.
Krumeich, A.
Abadía-Barrero, C. E.
van den Borne, H. W.
author_sort Quevedo-Gómez, M. C.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Cartagena, Colombia’s main port on the Caribbean Coast, reported an HIV incidence of 7.5 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2007 with 90.0% transmission by heterosexual contact and 70 identified as women with a stable partner. Studies across Colombia illustrate that HIV infection relates to social inequalities; most people with HIV live in poverty and have minimal access to health care, education, and secure jobs. The purpose of this article is to analyse the relationship between social inequalities, sexual tourism and HIV infection in Cartagena, Colombia. METHODS: Data come from a five-year participatory ethnography of HIV in Cartagena in the period 2004–2009, in which 96 citizens (30 of whom were living with HIV) participated in different data collection phases. Techniques included participant observation, in-depth interviews and thematic life histories. Out of this material, we selected three life histories of two women and a man living with HIV that are representative of the ways in which participants expressed how social inequalities make it virtually impossible to engage in safe sex practices. RESULTS: At stake is the exchange of condomless sex for goods within the widespread sexual tourism networks that promote an idealisation of dark-skinned men and women as better sexual performers. Our results illustrate the complex interplay of social inequalities based on class, skin colour, gender and sexual orientation. Furthermore, they suggest a synergistic effect between poverty, racialization, and gender inequalities in the historical maintenance of social dynamics for a fruitful growth of a sexual tourism industry that in turn increases vulnerability to HIV infection. CONCLUSIONS: Although the convergence of social inequalities has been thoroughly reported in the literature on social studies of HIV vulnerability; distinctive dynamics are occurring in Cartagena, including a clear link between the contemporary globalised sexual tourism industries and a racialised social structure - both having historical roots in the colonial past-.
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spelling pubmed-74147562020-08-10 Social inequalities, sexual tourism and HIV in Cartagena, Colombia: an ethnographic study Quevedo-Gómez, M. C. Krumeich, A. Abadía-Barrero, C. E. van den Borne, H. W. BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Cartagena, Colombia’s main port on the Caribbean Coast, reported an HIV incidence of 7.5 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2007 with 90.0% transmission by heterosexual contact and 70 identified as women with a stable partner. Studies across Colombia illustrate that HIV infection relates to social inequalities; most people with HIV live in poverty and have minimal access to health care, education, and secure jobs. The purpose of this article is to analyse the relationship between social inequalities, sexual tourism and HIV infection in Cartagena, Colombia. METHODS: Data come from a five-year participatory ethnography of HIV in Cartagena in the period 2004–2009, in which 96 citizens (30 of whom were living with HIV) participated in different data collection phases. Techniques included participant observation, in-depth interviews and thematic life histories. Out of this material, we selected three life histories of two women and a man living with HIV that are representative of the ways in which participants expressed how social inequalities make it virtually impossible to engage in safe sex practices. RESULTS: At stake is the exchange of condomless sex for goods within the widespread sexual tourism networks that promote an idealisation of dark-skinned men and women as better sexual performers. Our results illustrate the complex interplay of social inequalities based on class, skin colour, gender and sexual orientation. Furthermore, they suggest a synergistic effect between poverty, racialization, and gender inequalities in the historical maintenance of social dynamics for a fruitful growth of a sexual tourism industry that in turn increases vulnerability to HIV infection. CONCLUSIONS: Although the convergence of social inequalities has been thoroughly reported in the literature on social studies of HIV vulnerability; distinctive dynamics are occurring in Cartagena, including a clear link between the contemporary globalised sexual tourism industries and a racialised social structure - both having historical roots in the colonial past-. BioMed Central 2020-08-08 /pmc/articles/PMC7414756/ /pubmed/32770984 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-09179-2 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research Article
Quevedo-Gómez, M. C.
Krumeich, A.
Abadía-Barrero, C. E.
van den Borne, H. W.
Social inequalities, sexual tourism and HIV in Cartagena, Colombia: an ethnographic study
title Social inequalities, sexual tourism and HIV in Cartagena, Colombia: an ethnographic study
title_full Social inequalities, sexual tourism and HIV in Cartagena, Colombia: an ethnographic study
title_fullStr Social inequalities, sexual tourism and HIV in Cartagena, Colombia: an ethnographic study
title_full_unstemmed Social inequalities, sexual tourism and HIV in Cartagena, Colombia: an ethnographic study
title_short Social inequalities, sexual tourism and HIV in Cartagena, Colombia: an ethnographic study
title_sort social inequalities, sexual tourism and hiv in cartagena, colombia: an ethnographic study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7414756/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32770984
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-09179-2
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