Signifying the Pandemics: Metaphors of AIDS, Cancer, and Heart Disease

It is argued that heart attack is depicted as the pathology of the Fordist, modernist body, while AIDS/cancer are pathologies of the postmodern body in late capitalism.

Abstract

This article offers a symbolic analysis of the cultural construction and signification of three of the major "pandemics" of the late 20th century: AIDS, cancer, and heart disease. It is based on unstructured interviews conducted in Israel between 1993-94 with 75 nurses and 40 physicians and between 1993-95 with 60 university students. Two key symbols, "pollution" and "transformation," are shown to constitute AIDS and cancer within a symbolic space that I suggest is "beyond culture," where body boundaries are dissolved and cultural categories are dismantled. Heart disease, in contrast, is metaphorized as a defect in the "body machinery." The article concludes by arguing that heart attack is depicted as the pathology of the Fordist, modernist body, while AIDS/cancer are pathologies of the postmodern body in late capitalism.