Love, lifestyles and the risk of AIDS: the moral worlds of young people in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso.

The HIV epidemic has had a profound impact on people's everyday life in most African societies. A large proportion of all new HIV infections involves young people between 15 and 25 years. The objective of this paper is to explore local moral worlds of young people in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, and discuss how the HIVS epidemic affects their reflections on their everyday life and their perceptions of sexual relationships. Based on anthropological fieldwork, including focus-group discussions, in-depth interviews and participant observation, a total of 57 young people between 15 and 25 years were followed over a 3-month period. Using the notion of 'lifestyle', the paper shows how structural factors of unemployment and poverty paired with global discourse on AIDS present the young people with frustrations and quandaries in relation to their hopes and images of love, faithfulness and modern living. The data shows that the HIV epidemic contributes to and accelerates their feeling of living in a risk society and of being at risk. In order to cope with these uncertainties and contingencies, local discourses of trust and fidelity become extremely important and to most young people HIV prevention is synonymous with finding a faithful partner and/or using condoms.