4.14.2006
Organ Wars (History and Theory of the Body)
Title
Joralemon, Donald. Organ Wars: The Battle for Body Parts. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 3, (Sep., 1995), pp. 335-356.
Field
History and Theory of the Body
Summary
Donald Joralemon suggests such a narrativizing in his analogizing of cyclosporine, the revolutionary immunosuppressant that increased the longevity of grafts by more effectively preventing the recipient’s immune system from rejecting the organ. In his article for Medical Anthropology, he attempts to show “an ideological equivalent to cyclosporine to inhibit cultural rejection of the surgery and the view of the body it promotes” – that view being “transplantation challenges traditional assumptions of self/body integrity by promoting a distinction between the brain as the center of consciousness and all other organs as replaceable parts.” (Joralemon, 1995)
Donald Joralemon describes the gift “ideology” as he calls it as being akin to “the sorts of acts Americans perform during disasters and accidents: caring responses to personal tragedies even when the individuals affected are strangers and there is no expectation of repayment.” (Joralemon, 1995) The argument for what Joralemon calls the “property rights” ideology maintains that such a shortage could be avoided if each individual were granted full property rights over their body and all its constitutive parts, thereby being allowed to sell organs at a fair market price to patients in organ failure
Other Thoughts
"What I am arguing is that, at least for the present and the future, the cultural sucess of transplantation will be measured by how effectively its supporting ideology suppresses, rather than replaces, traditional concepts of bodily integrity, including the idea that the social relevance of the body to the self does not evaporate with the declaration of brain death." (347)
Other QE Works Cited
Haraway, D. The Biopolitics of Postmodern Bodies (History and Theory of the Body)
Martin, E. Flexible Bodies (History and Theory of the Body)
Joralemon, Donald. Organ Wars: The Battle for Body Parts. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 3, (Sep., 1995), pp. 335-356.
Field
History and Theory of the Body
Summary
Donald Joralemon suggests such a narrativizing in his analogizing of cyclosporine, the revolutionary immunosuppressant that increased the longevity of grafts by more effectively preventing the recipient’s immune system from rejecting the organ. In his article for Medical Anthropology, he attempts to show “an ideological equivalent to cyclosporine to inhibit cultural rejection of the surgery and the view of the body it promotes” – that view being “transplantation challenges traditional assumptions of self/body integrity by promoting a distinction between the brain as the center of consciousness and all other organs as replaceable parts.” (Joralemon, 1995)
Donald Joralemon describes the gift “ideology” as he calls it as being akin to “the sorts of acts Americans perform during disasters and accidents: caring responses to personal tragedies even when the individuals affected are strangers and there is no expectation of repayment.” (Joralemon, 1995) The argument for what Joralemon calls the “property rights” ideology maintains that such a shortage could be avoided if each individual were granted full property rights over their body and all its constitutive parts, thereby being allowed to sell organs at a fair market price to patients in organ failure
Other Thoughts
"What I am arguing is that, at least for the present and the future, the cultural sucess of transplantation will be measured by how effectively its supporting ideology suppresses, rather than replaces, traditional concepts of bodily integrity, including the idea that the social relevance of the body to the self does not evaporate with the declaration of brain death." (347)
Other QE Works Cited
Haraway, D. The Biopolitics of Postmodern Bodies (History and Theory of the Body)
Martin, E. Flexible Bodies (History and Theory of the Body)
# posted by SMRT : 3:03 PM
