The social dynamics of consent and refusal in HIV surveillance in rural South Africa

► Consent and refusal to HIV surveillance take place in the context of everyday social relations and local exchange economies. ► Local notions of gift and relatedness and rights and obligations frame exchanges of blood for knowledge in HIV surveillance. ► Participants struggled to differentiate HIV surveillance from testing, thereby blurring concepts of risk and benefit. ► Surveillance programs should engage with local constructions of risk, benefit and relatedness in research design.