Resisting Expert Culture: Soul Cysters Speak from the Heart, Challenge Expert Culture, and Achieve Empowerment through the New Public Sphere

• In Event: Voices of resistance and the limits of cultural politics

Abstract

Tensions between expert culture and everyday experience continue to manifest and the medical field as expert culture is gaining resistance. With increased Internet use, this new public sphere allows individuals to educate themselves and challenge the experts. By exploring how an online support group of women suffering from Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome provides empowerment and resistance to expert culture within the health field, a greater understanding of alternative models results as everyday experience subverts expert culture.

Author

• Kittie Grace, Hastings College