Repaying the gift of life: self-help, organ transfer and the debt of care
Repaying the gift of life: self-help, organ transfer and the debt of care
A total of 2,552 organs from deceased donors were transplanted in the UK in 2009, yet more than 1,000 people die each year waiting for an organ transplant. The metaphor of the ‘gift of life’ remains the rubric under which increasing the availability of organs for transplant is commonly organised. Like all gifts, the ‘gift of life’ must be reciprocated. Reviewing the advice given by, and for, transplant recipients in self-help and autobiographical literature aimed at those waiting for or who have just received a new organ we argue that reciprocity is circumscribed through projects of ‘care’ articulated at a range of scales including the organ, the self, the donor and the transplant community itself. We argue that the scarcity of organs available for transplant is used to compel recipients into adopting practices of self-care, to embodying the promise of the gift of life and to articulate a set of ethical responses to the new geography of embodiment that emerge from the movement of organs from one body and their transplantation into another.
Dickinson, Jen
11c18e3e-dad8-4bfc-91ee-9322fea472e5
Sothern, Matthew
d26e78c3-0447-4891-a49a-c8839ef43ad8
18 November 2011
Dickinson, Jen
11c18e3e-dad8-4bfc-91ee-9322fea472e5
Sothern, Matthew
d26e78c3-0447-4891-a49a-c8839ef43ad8
Dickinson, Jen and Sothern, Matthew
(2011)
Repaying the gift of life: self-help, organ transfer and the debt of care.
Social & Cultural Geography.
(doi:10.1080/14649365.2011.624192).
Abstract
A total of 2,552 organs from deceased donors were transplanted in the UK in 2009, yet more than 1,000 people die each year waiting for an organ transplant. The metaphor of the ‘gift of life’ remains the rubric under which increasing the availability of organs for transplant is commonly organised. Like all gifts, the ‘gift of life’ must be reciprocated. Reviewing the advice given by, and for, transplant recipients in self-help and autobiographical literature aimed at those waiting for or who have just received a new organ we argue that reciprocity is circumscribed through projects of ‘care’ articulated at a range of scales including the organ, the self, the donor and the transplant community itself. We argue that the scarcity of organs available for transplant is used to compel recipients into adopting practices of self-care, to embodying the promise of the gift of life and to articulate a set of ethical responses to the new geography of embodiment that emerge from the movement of organs from one body and their transplantation into another.
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Published date: 18 November 2011
Additional Information:
2011 Taylor & Francis
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Local EPrints ID: 471772
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/471772
ISSN: 1464-9365
PURE UUID: 2adcf4f2-a163-4bc4-ab62-4820ba238311
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Date deposited: 18 Nov 2022 17:30
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 04:14
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Author:
Jen Dickinson
Author:
Matthew Sothern
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