Lives rebuilt. Exclusion and social integration of women living with HIV in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso)

Based on a qualitative and ethnographic study conducted between 2006 and 2008 within an association in Ouagadougou, this article shows that HIV infection is an event that modifies the life of the infected or affected women because the discovery of their disease weakens their socioeconomic, matrimonial and political status. These biographical disruptions are overcome through the support of NGOs such as APIAS (the Association of Persons Infected with HIV), churches or institutions that provide care for people affected by HIV and which foster their return to "normal life". The conquest of a second "breath of life" is achieved through the search for medical and spiritual care, and the reconstruction of a new social network, as well as through economic autonomy. These enable the remaking of the biological bodies and the social identities of the women we interviewed.