TY - CONF

T1 - Donors Data and Disposable Bodies

T2 - EASST + 4S JOINT CONFERENCE

AU - Jensen, Anja MB

PY - 2020/8/18

Y1 - 2020/8/18

N2 - Organ transplantation foregrounds the opportunities and potentials of medical advancements regarding sustaining life, inventing new ways of dying, and getting viable organs at any cost and means. In Denmark, the quest for improving donation rates focuses on detecting potential donors, generating more data on organ donation processes, and improving organ preservation technology. At least in principle in these endeavors, the question of the personhood of organ donors seems to be absent in organ transplantation policies: organ donors are counted and turned into data, or else substituted in research experiments by a pig model providing organs in lieu of human organs. However, the daily practices of transplant professionals reveal a different picture. Based on ethnographic fieldwork among Danish organ transplant professionals, this paper discusses how personhood is contested and negotiated among them. Why does the intensive care nurse put lotion on the feet of the organ donor? Why does the transplant coordinator print the donor journal and cautiously put it in the right kind of new plastic folder in the archive cabinet even if it is already digitally stored? And why does the transplant surgeon reflect on the dignity of human organ donors and the practices of organ procurement when using and disposing pig bodies? Addressing the moral and material practices in the daily work of transplant professionals, this paper examines how personhood can be conceptualized in relation to deceased organ donors, how notions of personhood, care, and dignity intersect, and how understandings of personhood will unfold in future transplant technology.

AB - Organ transplantation foregrounds the opportunities and potentials of medical advancements regarding sustaining life, inventing new ways of dying, and getting viable organs at any cost and means. In Denmark, the quest for improving donation rates focuses on detecting potential donors, generating more data on organ donation processes, and improving organ preservation technology. At least in principle in these endeavors, the question of the personhood of organ donors seems to be absent in organ transplantation policies: organ donors are counted and turned into data, or else substituted in research experiments by a pig model providing organs in lieu of human organs. However, the daily practices of transplant professionals reveal a different picture. Based on ethnographic fieldwork among Danish organ transplant professionals, this paper discusses how personhood is contested and negotiated among them. Why does the intensive care nurse put lotion on the feet of the organ donor? Why does the transplant coordinator print the donor journal and cautiously put it in the right kind of new plastic folder in the archive cabinet even if it is already digitally stored? And why does the transplant surgeon reflect on the dignity of human organ donors and the practices of organ procurement when using and disposing pig bodies? Addressing the moral and material practices in the daily work of transplant professionals, this paper examines how personhood can be conceptualized in relation to deceased organ donors, how notions of personhood, care, and dignity intersect, and how understandings of personhood will unfold in future transplant technology.

UR - https://convention2.allacademic.com/one/ssss/ssss20/index.php?cmd=Online+Program+View+Paper&selected_paper_id=1657620&PHPSESSID=ddfemevfcjs2s4hu5nrkt4h24k

M3 - Paper

Y2 - 18 August 2020 through 21 August 2020

ER -