Previously Married Women & HIV/AIDS in Urban Tanzania: Sex, Exchange & the Search for Social Legitimacy

Previously married women have been shown to have high prevalence rates for HIV/AIDS across urban Africa for some time. However, few studies have examined their daily lives, survival strategies, and sexual decision making processes in any detail. This paper addresses this gap by shedding light on the daily lives of previously married women in one shantytown neighborhood of Mwanza, Tanzania. It specifically focuses on how they form and maintain networks of material and symbolic exchange, and how these networks may have direct implications for their sexual practices and decision-making practices, and constructions of risk for HIV/AIDS. It suggests that HIV/AIDS among previously married women in urban Africa must be understood on their own, often complex, terms, rather than as exemplifying a generalized female inequality or in terms of professional sex workers