Fauk, N.K.; Mwanri, L.; Gesesew, H.A.; Ward, P.R. Biographical Reinvention: An Asset-Based Approach to Understanding the World of Men Living with HIV in Indonesia. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health2023, 20, 6616.
Fauk, N.K.; Mwanri, L.; Gesesew, H.A.; Ward, P.R. Biographical Reinvention: An Asset-Based Approach to Understanding the World of Men Living with HIV in Indonesia. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20, 6616.
Fauk, N.K.; Mwanri, L.; Gesesew, H.A.; Ward, P.R. Biographical Reinvention: An Asset-Based Approach to Understanding the World of Men Living with HIV in Indonesia. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health2023, 20, 6616.
Fauk, N.K.; Mwanri, L.; Gesesew, H.A.; Ward, P.R. Biographical Reinvention: An Asset-Based Approach to Understanding the World of Men Living with HIV in Indonesia. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20, 6616.
Abstract
HIV diagnosis and management have often caused disruptions to the everyday life and imagined futures of people living with HIV, both at individual and social levels. This has been conceptualised, in a rather dystopian way, as ‘biographical disruption’. This paper attempts to re-cast data from interviews with 40 men living with HIV (MLHIV) in Yogyakarta and Belu, Indonesia, in a slightly more positive light. Our analysis uses the concepts of additive and subtractive resilience strategies and we show how, rather than having a purely disrupted biography, participants talked about their experiences of ‘biographical reinvention'. Study participants were recruited using the snowball sampling technique, starting from two HIV clinics in the settings. Data were collected using one-on-one in-depth interviews, and a qualitative framework analysis was used to guide step-by-step data analysis. The findings showed that despite the disruptions in their everyday life (i.e., mental health condition, work, activities, social relationships, etc.) following the HIV diagnosis and management, MLHIV in our study managed to utilise their internal assets or traits (i.e., hope, optimism, resilience) and mobilised external resources (i.e., support from families, friends and healthcare professionals) to cope with the disruptions. An interweaving of these internal assets and external resources enabled them to take on new activities and roles (additive resilience strategies) and give up health compromising behaviours (subtractive resilience strategies). These were effective for most MLHIV in our study not only to cope with the HIV repercussions and improve their physical and mental health conditions, but to think or work on a ‘reinvented’ biography which encompassed resilience, hope and optimism for better health, life and future. The findings indicate the need for HIV interventions and healthcare systems that provide appropriate support for the development and maintenance of internal assets of PLHIV to enable them to cope with the repercussions of HIV and work on a ‘reinvented’ biography.
Keywords
Biographical disruption; biographical reinvention; additive strategy; subtractive strategy; hope, optimism, resilience; men living with HIV, Indonesia
Subject
Public Health and Healthcare, Public Health and Health Services
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
