HEPATITIS C

Abstract

Since hepatitis C virus (HCV) was identified in 1989, thousands of persons in Australia and hundreds of thousands worldwide have been faced with the uncertainty that comes with a positive test for the HCV antibody. Those persons confronted with a diagnosis of HCV find that their self-stories are disrupted and that they have no place to tum either for reliable information or for meaningful discourses that would help them to make sense of their changed lives. Drawing from medical and governmental documents as well as from naturalistic observation and interviews, I attempt to map the major discursive domains circulating around the social construction of a positive diagnosis of HCV. I also examine how these persons act within the competing vortices of social forces to form their own social agencies and discursive formations in their attempts to gain control of the meaning of their conditions and of their lives.