Challenge & Innovation

Series Editor’s Preface

The advent of HIV and AIDS issued a challenge to social and behavioural researchers globally—that of generating knowledge and understanding for the development of effective interventions, in the fields of prevention, care, counselling and community support. It encouraged too an in-depth exploration of aspects of life which had hitherto been left unexamined: sex between men, sex work, injecting drug use, each became an important research area in its own right. Such enquiry called for the use of research techniques which were both sensitive and specific to the issue in question. Only rarely were existing methodologies adequate for the challenge.

Some ten years into the epidemic, it is appropriate to pause and consider what ...