We are all going to die’: Kinship, belonging and the morality of HIV/AIDS-related illnesses and deaths in rural Tanzania

This article explores how moral perceptions of HIV/AIDS-related illness and death in rural Tanzania are related to social and cultural practices of disease interpretation, patient caring and burial in the context of rural-urban migra-tion and HIV/AIDS. Drawing on anthropological discussions of the relationship between death, social reproduction, and HIV/AIDS I argue that moral discours-es and practices surrounding the epidemic in Northwest Tanzania are intimate-ly intertwined with local notions of order and disorder. Furthermore, they are tied to individual and collective concerns about the implications that the high numbers of premature deaths among young men and women are perceived to have on the continuity of whole families and communities. Focusing on the case studies of several young HIV-infected women and men who finally died from the consequences of AIDS I show that the infected persons themselves, as well as their relatives, draw on a wide range of—sometimes mutually contra-dictory—strategies in dealing with the disease in cultural, religious, or moral terms (including the reference to witchcraft or the violation of ritual prescrip-tions). In conclusion, I argue that the various strategies and practices surround-ing HIV/AIDS-related illnesses and deaths have become an integral part of th