Appealing Images: Magnetic Resonance Imaging and the Production of Authoritative Knowledge

This paper examines popular narratives used to discuss magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examinations in the USA. It shows that these narratives equate the image with the physical body, progress, and authoritative knowledge. This work also traces the political and social effects of these accounts. Drawing from ethnographic research at three imaging sites and in-depth interviews with 48 physicians and technologists, I show how these discourses erase physicians’ and technologists’ knowledge about and use of MRI technology and images. Analysis of work practices in imaging units and hospitals demonstrates how each image intertwines aspects of a patient’s body, socio-technical features, and economic priorities in locally specific ways to constitute the body in medical practice and social life. Despite the tendency of popular narratives to position MRI examinations as objective knowledge, these images are not neutral nor are they equivalent to the physical body. I also show how erasure of physicians’ and technologists’ everyday work practices reinforces current imaging routines and policies, helping to sustain activities such as direct marketing to potential patients or the placement of imaging technologies in shopping malls.