Hepatitis C cure as a 'gathering': Attending to the social and material relations of hepatitis C treatment
Dados Bibliográficos
| AUTOR(ES) | |
|---|---|
| AFILIAÇÃO(ÕES) | La Trobe University, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre University of New South Wales Sydney New South Wales Australia, Prevention and Population and Health Branch Public Health Division Department of Health Victoria State Government Melbourne Victoria Australia |
| ANO | 2022 |
| TIPO | Artigo |
| PERIÓDICO | Sociology of Health and Illness |
| ISSN | 0141-9889 |
| E-ISSN | 1467-9566 |
| EDITORA | Sage Publications (United States) |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9566.13467 |
| ADICIONADO EM | 2025-08-18 |
Resumo
Since the advent of direct‐acting antiviral hepatitis C treatments, widespread enthusiasm about disease elimination has emerged. This article examines experiences of hepatitis C treatment and cure in this period. Mobilising Fraser and Seear's (Making disease, making citizens: The politics of hepatitis C, Ashgate, 2011) approach to hepatitis C as a 'gathering', we analyse cure not as a biomedical phenomenon but as a social and material event. To do so, we take a Science and Technology Studies‐inspired approach to analyse three complementary cases drawn from an Australian project on experiences of hepatitis C, treatment and cure. First, we analyse the ways a friendship between two women combines with adjustments to treatment access to produce a gathering that makes cure possible. Second, we analyse the forces that gather and distribute responsibility when a cure does not occur in a context shaped by oversimplified treatment logics. Third, we analyse a gathering of relations in which hepatitis C lingers, thereby limiting the cure's possible transformative effects. We argue that, even in an era defined by highly effective medicines, the hepatitis C cure is not necessarily straightforward, but an unpredictable gathering constituted by a fragile coalescing of social and material forces.