“I Don’t Want to Bring the Stigma of this Epidemic on Myself and My Family!”
Although the HIV pandemic has lost media attention over the past decade, it continues to take its toll around the world. In this article, I look at HIV in a place where it is not expected: the Fiji Islands. I analyze a fundamental dimension of the HIV experience: stigma. I examine the forms that HIV stigma takes in Fiji, the moral universe in which it takes shape, and the social and cultural logic from which it proceeds in the Fijian society. I also analyze how people living with HIV experience this stigma, including the sense of shame (māduā) associated with it. Finally, I discuss the strategies that people living with HIV use to cope with stigma and shame, including keeping their condition secret, attempting to restore their image in the eyes of others by converting to an evangelical, charismatic, or Pentecostal Christianity and becoming an HIV activist. Drawing on Arthur Kleinman’s theoretical approach, I explore HIV-related stigma in Fiji as a fundamentally moral, intersubjective, and emotional experience.