Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Organ Transplant: Culture and Disease

To understand the connection between culture and our notions of HEALTH and ILLNESS, it is interesting to look at the phenomenon of organ transplant and the way that it is understood and received cross-culturally and within diverse communities in American Culture:

VIEWS OF ORGAN TRANSPLANT

  • Hegemonic Views from Allopathy:
    • Body is an organic machine with replaceable parts
      • Mind and body are separate aspects of human beings, the body may be understood as an interrelated set of components whose function is mechanistic (Gordon 1995)
    • parts are absent "identity" 
    • parts are equal in their value and have no other cultural meaning attributes
      • heart
      • face
      • eyes
      • hand
      • brain?
      • blood
    • are there cultural meanings here? 
      • What might their potential significance be?
        • organs and the embodiment of SELFHOOD, notions of CONTAGIOUS MAGIC and enbodiment
      • meeting the donor's family-special significance?
      • how might this impact organ donation rates and attitudes about organ transplants
    • ORGANS are COMMODIFIED as are other parts of the body
      • organ sales
      • exploitation of the poor and vulnerable (Dirty Pretty Things)
      • access to "lists" as a product of Racism and privilege
    • Redefinition of DEATH as BRAIN DEATH in order to facilitation transplantation
      • resistance to this definition
      • abuse perceptions subject to this definition
    • COST is justified as "war" on the body as "controlled" by culture.
    • Drs. especially surgeons are HEROIC and at the "frontiers" of medicine 
      • seen as "miracle workers"
      • artificial heart experiments and Dr. DeVries
      • separation of conjoined twins
      • "GIFT OF LIFE"
        • Mauss (1954) and the notion of gift giving and the cultural importance of reciprocation in exchange.
        • no reciprocation is possible (dilemma culturally) 
THE LGBTQIA COMMUNITY---Cultural Presuppositions
  • Notions of health and wellbeing related to embodiment
    • how do these differ from the hegemonic culture
  • are the body and mind distinct and separate unrelated entities?
  • Is gender purely a "social/cultural construction"?
  • How are gender and sexuality and sex and sexual preference interrelated concepts?
    • do these have alternate meanings in the LGBTQIA community?
    • how will this impact their access to healthcare, services and wellbeing?

No comments:

Post a Comment