4.14.2006
Organ Transplantation as a Transformative Experience (History and Theory of the Body)
Title
Sharp, Lesley A. Organ Transplantation as a Transformative Experience: Anthropological Insights into the Restructuring of the Self. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 3. (Sep., 199), pp. 357-389
Field
History and Theory of the Body
Summary
Lesley Sharp discusses the confusing of the two camps of Organ Donation ideologies, the gift ideology and the property rights ideology in her article in the same special issue on Cultural Perspectives on Organ Transplants. She argues that on one hand transplant donors are told the gift narrative to encourage donation in the belief that their bodies (or the bodies of their deceased loved ones) will live on in the recipient’s body, but recipients are encouraged to view the donor organ as a commodity that they now own to prevent a confusion or bifurcation of identity. (Sharp, 1995) According to Sharp’s ethnographic research of organ donors and recipients at Mercy Medical, a major transplant center in the Midwest, in the effort to reconstruct a sense of self post-transplant, due to these conflicting strategic narratives, the recipient “perceives the organ as an unusual object, one whose nature is rich and varied: it is perceived simultaneously as a thing and as an other…organs are simultaneously commoditized and personalized by professionals…[the organs] cultural value lies in their economic and their social worth: they are rare commodities in part because they are personalized objects.” (Ibid) Sharp argues that the post-transplant recipient is thrown into story that is confused by both of these ideologies, one that encourages personal identification and the other which demands objectification, causing the patient much anxiety on the road to an integrated conception of self. Sharp recounts an informant’s lament, “We’re told, ‘Return to work to pay back your debt to society,’ and ‘Productivity is important.’…You see, the doctors think we’re cured. But we’re not cured…we’re seen as unreliable employees, and health insurance companies redline transplant patients. If they hire you they may refuse to let you join the health plan.” (Sharp, 1995)
Other Thoughts
"In the United States, organ exchange may thus be viewed as occuring at the intersection of a host of competing biographies. Put another way, transplantation is a social act that generates new biographies or extends or enhances existing ones. The organ itself may be viewed as embodying a biography of its own." (378)
Other QE Works Cited
Harawy, D. Simian, Cyborgs, and Women (History and Theory of the Body)
Sharp, Lesley A. Organ Transplantation as a Transformative Experience: Anthropological Insights into the Restructuring of the Self. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 3. (Sep., 199), pp. 357-389
Field
History and Theory of the Body
Summary
Lesley Sharp discusses the confusing of the two camps of Organ Donation ideologies, the gift ideology and the property rights ideology in her article in the same special issue on Cultural Perspectives on Organ Transplants. She argues that on one hand transplant donors are told the gift narrative to encourage donation in the belief that their bodies (or the bodies of their deceased loved ones) will live on in the recipient’s body, but recipients are encouraged to view the donor organ as a commodity that they now own to prevent a confusion or bifurcation of identity. (Sharp, 1995) According to Sharp’s ethnographic research of organ donors and recipients at Mercy Medical, a major transplant center in the Midwest, in the effort to reconstruct a sense of self post-transplant, due to these conflicting strategic narratives, the recipient “perceives the organ as an unusual object, one whose nature is rich and varied: it is perceived simultaneously as a thing and as an other…organs are simultaneously commoditized and personalized by professionals…[the organs] cultural value lies in their economic and their social worth: they are rare commodities in part because they are personalized objects.” (Ibid) Sharp argues that the post-transplant recipient is thrown into story that is confused by both of these ideologies, one that encourages personal identification and the other which demands objectification, causing the patient much anxiety on the road to an integrated conception of self. Sharp recounts an informant’s lament, “We’re told, ‘Return to work to pay back your debt to society,’ and ‘Productivity is important.’…You see, the doctors think we’re cured. But we’re not cured…we’re seen as unreliable employees, and health insurance companies redline transplant patients. If they hire you they may refuse to let you join the health plan.” (Sharp, 1995)
Other Thoughts
"In the United States, organ exchange may thus be viewed as occuring at the intersection of a host of competing biographies. Put another way, transplantation is a social act that generates new biographies or extends or enhances existing ones. The organ itself may be viewed as embodying a biography of its own." (378)
Other QE Works Cited
Harawy, D. Simian, Cyborgs, and Women (History and Theory of the Body)
# posted by SMRT : 2:43 PM
