http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/36705149

Impure science AIDS, activism, and the politics of knowledge

AIDS research in the United States has been marked by a sustained lay invasion of the domain of scientific fact-making. This case study in the sociology of scientific knowledge argues that the construction of credible biomedical knowledge about AIDS cannot be understood apart from a consideration of the roles played by activists, the media, and other lay actors in asserting and assessing knowledge claims. Drawing upon the work of Bourdieu, Latour, Foucault, and others, this study contributes to a theorization of how credibility is established and challenged in knowledge controversies. The analysis shows how certainty is constructed in biomedicine; how knowledge emerges from "credibility struggles" within a relational field: and how the unusual politicization of AIDS has altered the conduct and resolution of scientific debates.

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