| Summary: | This article is based on fieldwork conducted in Normandy (France) with people living with cancer, in an official oncology treatment institution and in an unconventional sphere. It analyses the influence of unconventional approaches on the dietary practices of people living with cancer. Searching for responses to their own case facing cancer and treatments, these people — who do not find enough counselling in official oncology institutions — often turn to social representations and dietary practices from the unconventional sphere. This study identifies “alternative authorities” known for their dietary approach to cancer, in the French national context. Their impact is confirmed through fieldwork, thus allowing to highlight the social dynamics proving their influence on patients and the larger public sphere. These approaches continuing the “alternative food movement” are echoing contemporary social movements such as defense of free-choice in medical settings, ecological thought, medical counter-culture, anti-liberal protest, and anti-pharmaceutical and industrial food production lobbies. Marginalisation of these “authorities” by official scientific or medical bodies is counter-balanced by their audience among their patients and biomedical sphere and by the declared proximity of their approach to new scientific evidence.
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