Work

The making of transplant kin

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: This is a paper about the relational and more-than-human matters of living and dying. Drawing on Australian fieldwork and interviews with bereaved families, I extend anthropological work on bodies and kinship in the context of organ donation and transplantation. Reorienting boundaries between bodies, life, and death, through an expansive category of 'transplant kin', I engage feminist science and technology studies (STS) to trouble imaginings of human exceptionalism and biological essentialism. In so doing, I argue that the making of transplant kin is an interembodied act which offers possibilities for recognising mutually constitutive relations with others and the world we live in.

Source: Social Science & Medicine

DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118173

Author: Tanya Zivkovic

Institution: The University of Adelaide

Language: English

Topic: Organ Donation and Transplantation

Subfield: Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

Field: Medicine

Domain: Health Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,800

Funder: Australian Research Council