Doctoral Dissertation Research: Intimate Sharing: The Enduring Connections of Living Organ Donation in the Contemporary United States

这项研究项目是一项关于活体器官移植的人种学研究，作为美国人努力挑战欧洲-美国人对身体和人的基本自由假设的有力场所。它带来了来自科学和技术研究的观点，这些研究高度关注实物的物质性和不断变化的本体论地位。智力的价值与以前的研究相比？对于器官本身不感兴趣，这项研究强调分享是一种方式，不仅关注器官和组织在移动和再生时的价值，而且还关注它们的实质性是如何通过特定的知识、实践和关系配置来制定和限制的。因此，实地工作是由两个相互关联的目标推动的。第一个是通过分享的分析来探索何时以及如何理解活的器官转移，对没有表达分享的情况保持同样的关注，即当“我的”和“你的”被强调和理解为相互排斥的时候。第二个是探索移植器官和移植修饰的身体是如何被赋予物质和代理的，特别是塑造器官所有权的态度和塑造的方式。潜在的更广泛的影响利用活体器官捐赠者和接受者之间持久联系的经验，该研究建议重振共享作为一个分析概念。阐述这种长期被忽视的占有模式，有望丰富谈论财产、交换和关系的方式，提供一个强调联系的术语，而不假设这种联系必然建立在相同、平等或喜悦的基础上。对分享的关注也有助于活着的器官捐赠者、接受者和其他感兴趣的人有效地表达与目前主导移植言论的“备件”和“生命礼物”模式相矛盾的经历。

IntroductionThis research project is an ethnographic study of living organ transfer as a potent site where Americans grapple with challenges to fundamental Euro-American liberal assumptions about bodies and persons. It brings perspectives from studies of science and technology that are highly attentive to materiality and the shifting ontological status of objects.Intellectual MeritIn contrast to previous studies? disinterest in organs themselves, this research emphasizes sharing as a way to attend not only to the value of organs and tissues as they move and regenerate, but also to how their very materiality is enacted and circumscribed through particular configurations of knowledge, practices, and relationships. The fieldwork is thus driven by two interrelated objectives. The first is to explore when and how living organ transfer is understood through the analytic of sharing, staying equally attentive to situations in which sharing is not expressed, namely when "mine" and "yours" are emphasized and understood as being mutually exclusive. The second is to explore the ways in which transplanted organs and transplant-modified bodies are rendered material and agentive in particular ways that shape and are shaped by attitudes toward organ ownership.Potential Broader ImpactsDrawing on the experiences of enduring connectivity between living organ donors and recipients, the research proposes to revitalize sharing as an analytical concept. Elaborating this long ignored mode of possession promises to enrich ways of talking about property, exchange, and relationships by providing a term that emphasizes connection without assuming this connection to be necessarily founded in sameness, equality, or joy. The focus on sharing also stands to help living organ donors, recipients, and other interested parties give valid expression to experiences that contradict the "spare parts" and "gift of life" models that currently dominate transplant rhetoric.