A Cultural Account of Organ Transplantation in Ontario, Canada

Abstract

Organ donation and transplantation is about bodies and body parts. It is about life, death, and the range of social experiences and relationships that fill the spaces between the beginning and end of a life. The study is a qualitative exploration of organ transplantation as a cultural phenomenon. The study draws heavily on interview material from transplant recipients and those close to them, in Ontario, Canada. An interpretation will be made by linking recipients’ statements, symbols, etc. in order to get at possible meanings and present a cultural account of organ transplantation. It will look at the understandings of the body and its organs present among people and society, and see how they allow for organs to take on a life of their own. This organ then becomes a party to the lives of transplant recipients, bringing with it a social force; the origin of which is grounded in our everyday understanding of the interrelatedness of life. We will see how this ‘animated’ organ comes with obligations, as part of the circle of gift exchange, upon which organ donation and transplantation is dependent on. We will then look at recipients’ attempts to fulfil this obligation, what will be suggested is a type of social burial. This need to put the ‘animated’ organ to rest might at times conflict with donor kin’s desire to have a memory of their loved one live on. Zombies and ghosts will be examined as widely circulating representations of inappropriate death in an attempt to give justice to some of the experiences of recipients. Cellular memory will be presented at the end as an attempt to bridge some of the mysterious and scientific aspects of organ transplantation