Grounding ‘Responsibilisation Talk’: Masculinities, Citizenship and HIV in Cape Town, South Africa

This paper investigates how the South African state has understood the relationship between HIV and poverty and how individuals and community-based organisations have responded to these state interventions. It considers the ways in which liberal forms of government frame people living with AIDS as a particular category of ‘deserving’ and ‘entrepreneurial’ citizens, and then re-frames them through a package of health and welfare interventions. Based on ethnographic research with the members of Khululeka, a support group for HIV-positive men, the study pays particular attention to how masculinity has shaped the ways these men have experienced and transformed these state interventions.