Conjuring medical science: the 1986 referendum on AIDS/HIV policy in California

Medical science occupies a peculiar status in American life. On the one hand, people often view medical science as a privileged and authoritative body of knowledge that transcends other kinds of knowledge. On the other hand, medical-scientific authority can be easily conjured from the popular symbols of science, e.g., credentials, technical terms, and white lab coats. This problem can be converted into an anthropological question of meanings and symbols, based on Geertz's interpretive anthropology and Baudrillard's sociology of hyperreality. This article uses these frameworks to explore the cultural construction of medical-scientific authority in the case of a 1986 referendum on AIDS/HIV policy in California. The interpretation of that construction raises some difficult problems concerning anthropology's treatment of medical science.