Boyle J S, Hodnicki D R, Ferrell J A
Department of Community Nursing, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta 30912, USA.
Sch Inq Nurs Pract. 1999 Summer;13(2):111-33; discussion 135-9.
Although the research on caregiving and caregivers has been extensive, there have been few studies on the cultural context and meaning of African American caregiving in relation to HIV illness. Many Black feminists have argued that African American women experience a world different from those who are not Black and that failure to take account of race, class, and gender is paramount in an attempt to authentically portray the lives of African American women. This study argues that rural African American culture and experiences of racism and discrimination in the rural South shaped the responses of mothers when their adult children developed HIV illness. The study employed the ethnographic techniques of participant observation and in-depth interviews with 14 rural, poor, African American mothers who cared for adult children with HIV illness. Analysis of the data identified patterns of resistance that mothers employed throughout the caregiving experience. Mothers resisted labels and other controlling images that they believed marginalized them and negated what was happening to their children. Mothers used culturally patterned behaviors to protect their families and resist the stigma of HIV/AIDS.
