This thesis focuses on the cultural construction of cancer experience in a modern clinical context. A French Canadian center, specializing in cancer treatment, was the main source of information for this study. Facts obtained from this setting served for the analysis. The first step in the proposed method, consisted of an ethnographic description of the clinical milieu observed. Next, five additional steps in the analysis indicated the principal elements of this cultural encounter with cancer. These steps included: (1) An analysis of the staff exchange; (2) An analysis of the patient's exchange; (3) An analysis of the documents on Terry Fox and Johnny Rougeau, heroic victims of cancer; (4) An exploration of the patients' lay knowledge on cancer; (5) A life story of a cancerous patient where by the dialectic trends between exchange, knowledge and experience are analysed. / The resultant three hypotheses deal with the emergence of a new exchange on cancer with an emphasis on hope and god morale, the homology of cancer exchanges in the clinical and social spheres, and finally concerning the nature of the layman's knowledge on cancer as making sense out of a troubling experience of liminality and alienation as well as the more open and dynamic character of the layperson's knowledge of cancer.

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