The role of the musical arts in HIV/AIDS intervention in Malawi

English: This study is a response to the call for localised research from a number of medical ethnomusicology experts who have studied and documented research findings on the relationships between medicine, music and culture in Africa. Such findings have been documented in recent publications such as Health Knowledge and Belief Systems in Africa (2008), The Oxford Handbook of Medical Ethnomusicology (2008) and The Culture o/AIDS in Africa (20 II). The field research supporting this study is country specific and aims at contributing to the greater academic effort of medical ethnomusicology on the African continent by providing depth of local information regarding the role that music has played as an intervention for public health concerns and healing efforts in Malawi. The study begins by ethnographically observing and investigating the HIV/AIDS situation in Malawi, factors that have contributed to the escalation of the situation, and the ways in which Malawian society has responded musically to pandemics in general and to the HIV/AIDS pandemic in particular. The findings of this observation and investigation are documented with the support of academic evidence on the realities of HIV/AIDS in local Malawian contexts and within the greater Southern African context. The supporting literature further discusses how the musical arts have played a role in defining and addressing these realities from social, cultural, economic, and biomedical points of view globally. Finally, the documented examples are evaluated to determine their efficacy. Challenges consistent with arts interventions are highlighted as largely due to inadequate knowledge, cultural biases, lack of training, and the practitioners' lack of sensitivity. It is observed throughout this study that different communities interpret music in different ways in order to share ideas, joy, memories, suffering, pain, and spiritual ideals. In addition, Malawian societies both in urban and rural communities use music as a unifying element for the achievement of predetermined goals. A number of interventions have been designed, developed, and implemented to address the impact of HI V/AIDS on Malawi; however, there is no documented data on the involvement and promotion of the musical arts in the effective and sustained fight against the pandemic at national governmental and non-governmental policy levels. This lack of material calls for large-scale research on arts-based HIV/AIDS intervention in Malawi, part of which is the attempt made through this study.