Assembling organ donation: situating organ donation in hospital practice

TY - JOUR

T1 - Assembling organ donation: situating organ donation in hospital practice

AU - Bea, Sara

PY - 2020/11

Y1 - 2020/11

N2 - In this article I argue for the need to situate deceased organ donation in and as a hospital practice. This study puts the spotlight on the practical conditions that enable and emplace organ donation in the hospital setting. The analytical move serves the political purpose to inform and interrogate dominant policy framings intended to address the problem of organ shortage. I present an ethnographic investigation that draws upon a Science and Technology Studies (STS) approach to make visible the sociomaterial arrangements that bring together people, things and politics in the assembling of organ donation at a Catalan hospital. A progressive and indeterminate process which might fall through and become disassembled at any given time. This, as I explain, challenges current opt-out policy that unnecessarily reduces donation to an individual choice to be decided upon in life. Instead, and drawing on ethnographic materials, I propose a situated and relational understanding of organ donation: an embedded health care and procurement practice enacted as a collective accomplishment. I conclude that (more) responsible donation policies need to be informed by, and attuned to, the situated practicalities and enduring tensions that condition and constrain the assembling of organ donation at the hospital setting.

AB - In this article I argue for the need to situate deceased organ donation in and as a hospital practice. This study puts the spotlight on the practical conditions that enable and emplace organ donation in the hospital setting. The analytical move serves the political purpose to inform and interrogate dominant policy framings intended to address the problem of organ shortage. I present an ethnographic investigation that draws upon a Science and Technology Studies (STS) approach to make visible the sociomaterial arrangements that bring together people, things and politics in the assembling of organ donation at a Catalan hospital. A progressive and indeterminate process which might fall through and become disassembled at any given time. This, as I explain, challenges current opt-out policy that unnecessarily reduces donation to an individual choice to be decided upon in life. Instead, and drawing on ethnographic materials, I propose a situated and relational understanding of organ donation: an embedded health care and procurement practice enacted as a collective accomplishment. I conclude that (more) responsible donation policies need to be informed by, and attuned to, the situated practicalities and enduring tensions that condition and constrain the assembling of organ donation at the hospital setting.

KW - STS

KW - ethnography

KW - hospitals

KW - organ donation

KW - policy analysis

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85089913722

U2 - 10.1111/1467-9566.13177

DO - 10.1111/1467-9566.13177

M3 - Article

VL - 42

SP - 1934

EP - 1948

JO - Sociology of Health & Illness

JF - Sociology of Health & Illness

IS - 8

ER -