Dr Christina Higgins is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Second Language Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where she teaches courses in sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, and intercultural communication. Her recent research has focused on communication in NGO-sponsored HIV/AIDS prevention and awareness education in Tanzania, where she has investigated the discursive construction of local and global worldviews. In her book, English as a local language: Post-colonial identities and multilingual practices (Multilingual Matters), she has also explored the role of language and popular culture in HIV/AIDS awareness efforts in hip hop lyrics and in public health advertisements. Her website can be found at http://www2.hawaii.edu/~cmhiggin.

Dr Bonny Norton is Professor and Distinguished University Scholar in the Department of Language and Literacy Education, University of British Columbia, Canada.  Her award-winning research addresses identity and language learning, education and international development, and critical literacy. Her current research investigates the use of innovative technology to promote multilingual literacy in sub-Saharan Africa. Recent publications include Identity and Language Learning (Longman/Pearson, 2000); Critical Pedagogies and Language Learning (Cambridge University Press, 2004, w. K. Toohey); and Gender and English Language Learners (TESOL, 2004, w. A. Pavlenko). Her website can be found at http://lerc.educ.ubc.ca/fac/norton/.

This volume focuses on the role of language in the construction of knowledge about HIV/AIDS in diverse regions of the world. The collection of studies yields helpful insights about the discursive construction of this knowledge in both formal and informal contexts, while demonstrating how the tools of applied linguistics can be exercised to reveal a deeper understanding of the production and dissemination of this knowledge. The authors use a range of qualitative methodologies to critically explore the role of language and discourse in educational contexts in which various and sometimes competing forms of knowledge about HIV/AIDS are constructed. They draw on various forms of discourse analysis, ethnography, and social semiotics to interpret meaning-making practices in HIV/AIDS education in Australia, Cambodia, Burkina Faso, Hong Kong, India, South Africa, Tanzania, Thailand, and Uganda.

Introduction - Applied Linguistics, Local Knowledge, and HIV/AIDS - Christina Higgins and Bonny Norton

Chapter 1 Lengths of Life - Stories of Being with HIV - William Savage

Chapter 2 Ugandan Students' Visual Representations of Health Literacies: A focus on HIV/AIDS Knowledge - Harriet Mutonyi and Maureen E. Kendrick

Chapter 3 Is It Safer to Talk about Sex in Spanish or English?: Performing Young Adulthood in Oaxaca, Mexico - Àngeles Clemente and Michael J. Higgins

Chapter 4 Safe Sex - Not So Straightforward: Intersubjective Positioning in Gay Men's Accounts of Sexual Exposure to HIV - Henrike Körner

Chapter 5 Dangerous Dogmas: AIDS, Discourse, and the Reality of the Rakhel System in India - Noushin Khushrushahi

Chapter 6 Discursive Constructions of Responsibility in HIV/AIDS Prevention: Investigating Re-entextualization Practices in Tanzania - Christina Higgins

Chapter 7 Uganda's ABC Program on HIV/AIDS Prevention: A Discursive Site of Struggle - Shelley Jones and Bonny Norton

Chapter 8 Learning about AIDS Online: Identity and Expertise on a Gay Internet Forum - Rodney H. Jones

Chapter 9 Contextualizing Local Knowledge: Reformulation in HIV/AIDS Prevention in Burkina Faso - Martina Drescher

Chapter 10 What Difference Does This Make?: Studying Southern African Youth as Knowledge Producers within a New Literacy of HIV and AIDS - Claudia Mitchell, Jean Stuart, Naydene de Lange, Relebohile Moletsane, Thabisile Buthelezi, June Larkin, and Sarah Flicker

Chapter 11 Articulations of Knowing: NGOs and HIV-positive Health in India - Mark Finn and Srikant Sarangi

Chapter 12 Signs Show the Way: Reading HIV Prevention on the Andaman Islands - Annabelle Mooney