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

本研究项目是一项关于活体器官移植的人种学研究，它是美国人应对欧美自由主义关于身体和人的基本假设挑战的有力场所。它带来了科学和技术研究的视角，这些研究高度关注物质性和对象的本体论地位的变化。智力优势：与以前的研究相比？本研究对器官本身不感兴趣，强调共享不仅是关注器官和组织在移动和再生过程中的价值，而且还关注它们的物质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驱动的。第一个是探索什么时候以及如何通过共享分析来理解活体器官转移，同样关注没有表达共享的情况，即当“我的”和“你的”被强调并被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以特定的方式呈现材料和代理的方式，这些方式塑造和塑造了对器官所有权的态度。潜在的更广泛的影响借鉴活体器官捐赠者和接受者之间持久联系的经验，该研究建议将共享作为一个分析概念重新焕发活力。详细阐述这种长期被忽视的占有模式，通过提供一个强调联系的术语，而不是假设这种联系必须建立在相同，平等或快乐之上，从而丰富了谈论财产，交换和关系的方式。对共享的关注也有助于活体器官捐赠者、接受者和其他相关方有效地表达与目前主导移植修辞的“备用部件”和“生命礼物”模型相矛盾的经验。

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.