Commodified kin: Death, mourning, and competing claims on the bodies of organ donors in the United States

American Anthropologist

Volumn 103, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 112-133

  Sharp, Lesley A ^a  

^a Barnard College of Columbia University   (United States)

Author keywords

Body pans; Commodification; Medical technology; Organ transplantation; United States

Indexed keywords

ART; ARTICLE; ATTITUDE TO DEATH; BRAIN DEATH; CADAVER; COMMODIFICATION; CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY; DEATH AND EUTHANASIA; DEHUMANIZATION; DONOR; EMPIRICAL APPROACH; FAMILY; HEALTH CARE AND PUBLIC HEALTH; HEALTH PERSONNEL ATTITUDE; HUMAN; INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION; LITERATURE; ORGAN TRANSPLANTATION; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; SOCIOLOGY; TRANSPLANTATION; UNITED STATES;

DEATH AND EUTHANASIA; EMPIRICAL APPROACH; HEALTH CARE AND PUBLIC HEALTH;

ANTHROPOLOGY, CULTURAL; ATTITUDE OF HEALTH PERSONNEL; ATTITUDE TO DEATH; BRAIN DEATH; CADAVER; COMMODIFICATION; COMMUNICATION; DEHUMANIZATION; FAMILY; HUMAN BODY; HUMANS; METAPHOR; ORGAN TRANSPLANTATION; SOCIOLOGY, MEDICAL; TISSUE AND ORGAN PROCUREMENT; TISSUE DONORS; TRANSPLANTATION; UNITED STATES;

EID: 0035629529     PISSN: 00027294     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/aa.2001.103.1.112     Document Type: Article

References (96)

1. Amnesty International 1995 Prepared Statement of Amnesty International USA on the Harvesting of Organs from Executed Prisoners in the People's Republic of China before the Committee on Foreign Relations of the United States Senate. May 4. Washington, DC: Federal News Service.
2. Anderson, Odin W., and Monroe Lerner 1960 Measuring Health Levels in the United States, 1900-1958. New York: Health Information Foundation, Research Series No. 11.
3. Andrews, Lori B. 1986 My Body, My Property. The Hastings Center Report 16(5): 28-38.
4. Appadurai, Arjun 1986 Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value. In The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Arjun Appadurai, ed. Pp. 3-63. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
5. Bloch, Maurice, and Jonathan Parry 1982 Introduction: Death and the Regeneration of Life. In Death and the Regeneration of Life. M. Bloch and J. Parry, eds. Pp. 1-44. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
6. Bowden, A. Bruce, and Alan R. Hull, co-chairs and eds. 1993 Controversies in Organ Donation. A Summary Report. June. New York: The National Kidney Foundation, Inc.
7. Caplan, Arthur L. 1983 Organ Transplants: The Costs of Success. The Hastings Center Report 13(6):23-32.
8. Capron, Alexander Morgan 1983 Looking Back at the President's Commission. The Hastings Center Report 13(5):7-12.
9. Cassell, Eric J. 1993 The Sorcerer's Broom: Medicine's Rampant Technology. The Hastings Center Report 23(6):32-39.
10. Cavell, Stanley 1997 Comments on Veena Das's Essay "Language and Body: Transactions in the Construction of Pain." In Social Suffering. A. Kleinman, V. Das, and M. Lock, eds. Pp. 93-98. Berkeley: University of California Press.
11. Clark, M. Margaret 1993 Medical Anthropology and the Redefining of Human Nature [Malinowski Award Lecture]. Human Organization 52(3):233-242.
12. Claudianus, Claudius 1993 De Raptu Proserpinae. C. Gruzelier, ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
13. Cohen, L. 1999 Where It Hurts: Indian Material for an Ethics of Organ Transplantation. Daedalus 128(4):135-164.
14. Coombs, Robert H., Sangeeta Chopra, Debra R. Schenk, and Elaine Yutan 1993 Medical Slang and Its Functions. Social Science and Medicine 36(8):987-998.
15. Cutler, D., ed. 1969 Updating Life and Death: Essays in Ethics and Medicine. Boston: Beacon Press.
16. Das, Veena 1997 Language and Body: Transactions in the Construction of Pain. In Social Suffering. A. Kleinman, V. Das, and M. Lock, eds. Pp. 67-91. Berkeley: University of California Press.
17. Davis-Floyd, R. E. 1994 The Technocratic Body: American Childbirth as Cultural Expression. Social Science and Medicine 38:1125-1140.
18. DeJong, William, Jessica Drachman, and Steven L. Gortmaker 1995 Options for Increasing Organ Donation: The Potential Role of Financial Incentives, Standardized Hospital Procedures, and Public Education to Promote Family Discussion. The Milbank Quarterly 73(3):463-479.
19. Doniger, Wendy 1996 Transplanting Myths of Organ Transplants. In Organ Transplantation: Meanings and Realities. S. J. Youngner, R. C. Fox, and L. J. O'Connell,eds. Pp. 194-220. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
20. Eliot, T. S. 1936 Selected Poems. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc.
21. Engelhardt, H. T. 1984 Allocating Scarce Medical Resources and the Availability of Organ Transplantation. New England Journal of Medicine 311:66-71.
22. Featherstone, M. 1982 The Body in Consumer Culture. Theory, Culture, and Society 1:18-33.
23. Field, Marilyn J., and Christine K. Cassel, eds. 1997 Approaching Death: Improving Care at the End of Life. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
24. Fishman, Jay, David Sacks, and Rashid Shaikh, eds. 1998 Xenotransplantation Scientific Frontiers and Public Policy. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 862.
25. Fletcher, J. 1969 Our Shameful Waste of Human Tissue: An Ethical Problem for the Living and the Dead. In Updating Life and Death: Essays in Ethics and Medicine. D. Cutler, ed. Pp. 1-30. Boston: Beacon.
26. Fox, Renée, and Judith P. Swazey 1974 The Courage to Fail: A Social View of Organ Transplants and Dialysis. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
27. 1992 Spare Parts: Organ Replacement in American Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
28. Franklin, Sarah 1992 Making Sense of Missed Conceptions: Anthropological Perspectives on Unexplained Infertility. In Changing Human Reproduction: Social Science Perspectives. M. Stacey, ed. Pp. 75-91. London: Sage.
29. Franz, Holly G., William DeJong, Susan W. Wolfe, H. Nathan, D. Payne, W. Reitsma, and C. Beasley 1997 Explaining Brain Death: A Critical Feature of the Donation Process. Journal of Transplant Coordination 7(1): 14-21.
30. Freud, Sigmund 1989 Selections on "Repression." In The Freud Reader. P. Gay, ed. Pp. 568-577. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.
31. Grady, Denise 1999 The New Organ Donors Are Living Strangers. New York Times, September 20: A1, A14.
32. Green, Reg 1999 The Nicholas Effect: A Boy's Gift to the World. Farnam: O'Reilly UK, Ltd.
33. Gregory, Dorothy R. 1981 Death - A New Definition. Journal of Legal Medicine 2(4):491-500.
34. Guttmann, Ronald D. 1992 On the Use of Organs from Executed Prisoners. Transplantation Reviews 6(3): 189-193.
35. Harvard Medical School [HMS], Ad Hoc Committee to Examine the Definition of Brain Death 1968 A Definition of Irreversible Coma. Journal of the American Medical Association 205:337.
36. Helman, Cecil 1988 Dr. Frankenstein and the Industrial Body. Anthropology Today 4(3): 14-16.
37. Hertz, R. 1960 A Contribution to the Study of the Collective Representation of Death. In Death and the Right Hand. R. and C. Needham, trans. London: Cohen and West.
38. Hogle, Linda F. 1995 Tales from the Cryptic: Technology Meets Organism in the Living Cadaver. In The Cyborg Handbook. C. H. Gray, H. J. Figueroa-Sarriera, and S. Mentor, eds. Pp. 203-216. New York: Routledge.
39. 1999 Recovering the Nation's Body: Cultural Memory, Medicine, and the Politics of Redemption. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
40. Hunkeler, David, Ales Prokop, Alan Cherrington, Ray Rajotte, and Michael Sefton, eds. 1999 Bioartificial Organs II: Technology, Medicine and Materials. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 875.
41. Huntington, Richard, and Peter Metcalf 1979 Celebrations of Death : The Anthropology of Mortuary Ritual. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
42. Ikels, Charlotte 1997 Ethical Issues in Organ Procurement in Chinese Societies. The China Journal 38:95-119.
43. Illich, Ivan 1976 Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health. New York: Pantheon.
44. Ioralemon, Donald 1995 Organ Wars: The Battle forBody Parts. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 9(3):335-356.
45. Kaufman, Sharon 2000 In the Shadow of "Death with Dignity": Medicine and Cultural Quandaries of the Vegetative State. American Anthropologist 102(1):69-83.
46. Keyserlingk, E. W. 1990 Human Dignity and Donor Altruism - Are They Compatible with Efficiency in Cadaveric Human Organ Procurement? Transplantation Proceedings 22(3): 1005-1006.
47. Khanna, P. M. 1992 Scarcity of Organs for Transplant Sparks a Move to Legalize Financial Incentives. The Wall Street Journal, September 8.
48. Kleinman, Arthur, Veena Das, and Margaret Lock, eds. 1997 Social Suffering. Berkeley: University of California Press.
49. Kopytoff, Igor 1986 The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process. In The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. A. Appadurai, ed. Pp. 64-91. New York: Cambridge University Press.
50. Kramer, Mark 1983 Medical Mortality Review: A Cordial Affair. In Invasive Procedures. Pp. 96-119. New York: Harper and Row.
51. Leary, Warren E. 1997 The Whole Body Catalogue/Almost Everything is Replaceable. New York Times, Science Times Section, July 8: C1, C6.
52. Levenson, James L., and Mary Ellen Olbrisch 1987 Shortage of Donor Organs and Long Waits. Psychosomatics 28(8):399-403.
53. LifeBanc 1994 Understanding Brain Death. Commonly Asked Questions [Pamphlet]. Artist: Haker. Cleveland: LifeBank of Ohio. June.
54. Lock, Margaret 1997a Culture, Technology, and the New Death: Deadly Disputes in Japan and North America. Culture 17(1-2):27-48.
55. 1997b Displacing Suffering: The Reconstruction of Death in North America and Japan. In Social Suffering. A. Kleinman, V. Das, and M. Lock, eds. Pp. 207-244. Berkeley: University of California Press.
56. In press Twice Dead: Circulation of Body Parts and Remembrance of Persons. Berkeley: University of California Press.
57. Lock, Margaret, and Christina Honde 1990 Reaching Consensus about Death: Heart Transplants and Cultural Identity in Japan. In Social Science Perspectives on Medical Ethics. G. Weisz, ed. Pp. 99-119. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
58. Lueck, Thomas J. 1999 New York City Wins an Award for WHAT? Ties with Far Town in Traffic Safety as Auto Club Cites a Drop in Deaths. New York Times, September 23: B1, B6.
59. Marshall, Patricia A., D. C. Thomasma, and A. S. Daar 1996 Marketing Human Organs: The Autonomy Paradox. Theoretical Medicine 17:1-18.
60. Martin, Emily 1994 Flexible Bodies: Tracking Immunity in American Culture from the Days of Polio to the Age of AIDS. Boston: Beacon Press.
61. Marx, Karl 1978 The Fetischism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof [from Capital, vol. 1]. In The Marx-Engels Reader. 2nd edition. R. Tucker, ed. Pp. 319-329. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.
62. National Donor Family Council (NDFC) 1994 Bill of Rights for Donor Families. New York: National Kidney Foundation.
63. 1997 National Communication Guidelines. July. New York.
64. N.d. Patches of Love. [Pamphlet, received 8/98]. New York.
65. Ohnuki-Tierney, E. 1994 Brain Death and Organ Transplantation: Cultural Bases of Medical Technology. Current Anthropology 35:233-254.
66. Ovid 1993 The Metamorphoses of Ovid. A. Mandelbaum, trans. New York: Harcourt Brace and Co.
67. Pietz,W. 1985 The Problem of the Fetish I. RES 9:5-17.
68. Plough, Alonzo L. 1986 Borrowed Time: Artificial Organs and the Politics of Extending Lives. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
69. Postman, Neil 1993 Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology. New York: Vintage.
70. President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research 1981 Defining Death: A Report on the Medical, Legal, and Ethical Issues in the Determination of Death. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
71. Rhodes, Lorna A. 1991 Emptying Beds: The Work of an Emergency Psychiatric Unit. Berkeley: University of California Press.
72. Richardson, Ruth 1996 Fearful Symmetry: Corpses for Anatomy, Organs for Transplantation? In Organ Transplantation: Meanings and Realities. Stuart J. Youngner, Renée C. Fox, and Laurence J. O'Connell, eds. Pp. 66-100. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
73. Roels, Leo [ETCO President] 1995 Address delivered at the annual meetings of the North American Transplant Coordinators Organization (NATCO), July 31, Boston.
74. Scheper-Hughes, Nancy 2000 The Global Traffic in Human Organs. Current Anthropology 41(2): 191-224.
75. Sells, R. A. 1990 Organ Commerce: Ethics and Expediency. Transplantation Proceedings 22(3):931-932.
76. Selzer, Richard 1976 Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery. New York: Simon and Schuster.
77. Sharp, Lesley A. 1995 Organ Transplantation as a Transformative Experience: Anthropological Insights into the Restructuring of the Self. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 9(3):357-389.
78. 1999 A Medical Anthropologist's View on Posttransplant Compliance: The Underground Economy of Medical Survival. Transplantation Proceedings 31 (Suppl 4A):31S-33S.
79. 2000 The Commodification of the Body and Its Parts. Annual Review of Anthropology 29:287-328.
80. Siminoff, Laura A., and Matthew D. Leonard 2000 Alternatives to the Altruistic Model of Organ Donation: Wrestling with Financial Options. UNOS Update, May: 66-67.
81. Smith, Brian D. 1994 The Gift of Life. Indianapolis Monthly, February: 86-91, 131-135.
82. Sontag, Susan 1990 Illness as Metaphor and Aids and Its Metaphors. New York: Anchor Books.
83. Stolberg, Sheryl Gay 1998 U.S. Urges New Rule on Sharing Donated Organs. New York Times, June 3:A14.
84. UNOS/OPTN (United Network for Organ Sharing/Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network) 1987-94 Scientific Registry Data, Departments of Communication and Research, for the years 1987-1994. [Acquired February 1994 and January 1995.] Richmond, VA: UNOS.
85. 1994 Non-Heartbeating Donation on the Rise: Transplant Community Turning to Original Source of Organs to Meet Demand. UNOS Update 10(11):3-4.
86. 1995 U.S. Organ Transplants Increase. UNOS Update 11(2): 39.
87. 1999a Cadaveric Organ Donation Increases 5.6 Percent in 1998. UNOS Update, June: 1.
88. 1999b Woman Receives New Organs from Two Living Donors. UNOS Update, November:7.
89. N.d. Organ and Tissue Donation: A Reference Guide for Clergy [Pamphlet]. Richmond, VA: UNOS.
90. Wood, R. Patrick 1994 A Brief History of Transplantation. Transplant Chronicles 2(3):4-5, 12.
91. Wu Hongda, Harry 1995 A Grim Organ Harvest. World Press Review, June: 22-23.
92. Youngner, Stuart J. 1990 Organ Retrieval: Can We Ignore the Dark Side? Transplantation Proceedings 22(3): 1014-1015.
93. 1998 Public address, 1998 Transplant Olympics, Ohio State University, Columbus, August.
94. Youngner, S. J., M. Allen, E. T. Bartlett, H. F. Cascorbi, T. Hau, D. O. Jackson, M. B. Mahowald, and B. J. Martin 1985 Psychosocial and Ethical Implications of Organ Retrieval. New England Journal of Medicine 313(5):321-324.
95. Youngner, S. J., C. S. Landefeld, C. J. Coulton, B. W. Juknialis, and M. Leary 1989 "Brain Death" and Organ Retrieval. A Cross-Sectional Survey of Knowledge and Concepts among Health Professionals. Journal of the American Medical Association 261(15):2205-2210.
96. Zola, Irving 1978 Medicine as an Institution of Social Control. In The Cultural Crisis of Modern Medicine. J. Ehrenreich, ed. Pp. 80-100. New York: Monthly Review Press.