Echoes and Antibodies: Legal Veridiction and the Emergence of the Perpetual Hepatitis C Subject. (April 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Seear, Kate; Fraser, Suzanne; Mulcahy, Sean; Kagan, Dion; Lenton, Emily; Farrugia, Adrian; valentine, kylie
• Is Part Of: Social & legal studies. Volume 32:Number 2(2023)
• Page Start: 216
• Page End: 236
• Publication Date: 2023-04
• Subjects: Hepatitis c -- stigma and discrimination -- cure -- law -- veridiction -- gathering -- science and technology studies -- qualitative research; Sociological jurisprudence -- Periodicals; 340.115
• DOI: 10.1177/09646639221115698
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0964-6639

Abstract

New drugs with the potential to cure hepatitis C have emerged. There is great optimism within medicine about the transformative potential of cure, but this overlooks the entrenched discrimination and stigma associated with both hepatitis C and injecting drug use and the role of law in re/producing it. Drawing on interviews with key stakeholders such as policymakers, lawyers, and representatives from peer organisations (N = 30), Latour's (2013) work on legal veridiction, Fraser and Seear's (2011) conceptualisation of hepatitis C as a 'gathering', andMol's (2021) work on being, this paper explores the possibility that legal processes complicate the linear trajectory of progress and transformation cure promises. Our participants' identify various legal processes that allow hepatitis C to echo or linger in people's lives after treatment. These processes are remaking hepatitis C, and making perpetual hepatitis C subjects. We argue that we must grapple with these forces in the era of cure.