Sex without birth or death: a comparison of two international humanitarian movements

Abstract

This book chapter compares efforts to control population and efforts to control AIDS, and argues that they have significant similarities. It argues that population control efforts were initially unsuccessful not because deep-rooted economic, social and cultural factors made the task impossible, but because the problem and solutions were socially constructed in the West, and initially received with suspicion and fear; that for behaviour to change the definition of the problem and the solutions need to be 'domesticated', and 'owned' by people rather than officials; that this eventually happened with population control; and that although AIDS control efforts in developing countries appear not to have achieved a great deal so far, the same will eventually happen in this field too