A Kinship of Bones by Henderson, Patricia C.

ISBN: 9781869142469

University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 01 January 2011

Paperback, 254 pages

From 2003 to 2006, Patricia Henderson lived in Okhahlamba in the region of the Northern Drakensberg, where she recorded the experience of people living with HIV/AIDS. In this illuminationg study, she explores the local repertoires through wwhich illness was folded into everyday life. The book spans a period when anti-retroviral medication was not available, and moves onto a time when the treatment became accessible. Hope gradually became manifest in the recovery of a number of people through anti-retroviral therapies and "the return" of bodies they could recognise as their own. The research implies the protracted interaction with poeple over time, and offers insights into the unfolding textures of every life, in particular in its focus on suffering, social and structural inequality, illness, violence, mourning, sensibility, care and intimacy.