HEPATITIS-C - DISCURSIVE DOMAINS AND EPISTEMIC CHASMS

Since hepatitis C virus (HCV) was identified in 1989, thousands of per sons in Australia and hundreds of thousands worldwide have been faced with the uncertainty that comes with a positive test for the Hcv antib ody. Those persons confronted with a diagnosis of HCV find that their self stories are disrupted and that they have no place to turn either for reliable information or for meaningful discourses that would help th am to make sense of their changed lives. Drawing from medical and g overnmental documents as well as from naturalistic observation and int erviews, I attempt to map the major discursive domains circulating aro und the social construction of a positive diagnosis of HCV. I also exa mine how these persons act within the competing vortices of social for ces to form their own social agencies and discursive formations in the ir attempts to gain control of the meaning of their conditions and of their lives.