Anja M B Jensen
Biographic Data
| ID | 79515 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Anja M B Jensen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Anja M B |
| FAMILY NAME | Jensen |
| SIGNATURE | JENSEN A M B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Copenhagen |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2405-6012 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 40 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
“Thanks Piggie”
Every day research animals of different species are made to live and die in research facilities as part of biomedical research. This article looks at the killing of livestock pigs for organs to be used in transplant science; a science driven by goals to save human lives by improving the use of donated organs. Based on an ethnographic study carried out in Denmark and the US, we explore how people engage in killing pigs and what it takes for humans…
Waiting as a frontier
Uterus transplantation (UTx) is an emerging frontier in reproductive medicine, that offers women born without a uterus the possibility of gestation through transplantation. While clinical programs are being established elsewhere, UTx remains unavailable in Denmark, where it has existed for nearly a decade as an anticipated yet inaccessible option. Based on in-depth interviews conducted between 2023 and 2025, this article explores experiences of w…
On-screen medicine. How patients present themselves to medical specialists in video consultations
Compassionate deception
This article uses the concept of compassionate deception to understand the complexity and duality at stake when health professionals and family members lie when caring for people with dementia. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork at two Danish nursing homes, we argue that compassionate deception conceptually illustrates the fine balance we observed of using lies and deception, while simultaneously acting with recognition and care towards residents.…
The video window
In the contemporary landscape of technologically mediated healthcare, video consultations introduce a dynamic interplay of challenges and opportunities. Taking the notion of 'the art of medicine' as an analytical frame, and drawing on interviews with medical specialists as well as participant observation of video consultations with patients (carried out between February 2022 and January 2023), this article investigates how video consultation tech…
Making it happen
Danish transplant coordinators handle all data and logistics involved with the removal and transfer of organs from the body of an organ donor into several recipients in other Scandinavian hospitals. This entails a wide range of data work, not only in relation to sudden organ donation cases, but also to documenting transplantations, providing feedback on donation outcomes, and facilitating the data needed by surgeons or other health professionals.…
Venturing Inside the Body
When patients who undergo awake arthroscopic surgery follow the surgery on a screen, medical image technologies enable a rare look inside one's own body. Based on ethnographic fieldwork at an orthopedic surgery unit in Denmark, we investigate how patients experience their bodies during surgery. Patients see surgery as proof of their pain, experience an anatomical re-categorization, and contemplate the decay of the aging body. We argue that awake …
Attitudes of European students towards family decision-making and the harmonisation of consent systems in deceased organ donation
There is overall division on whether families should have a surrogate role, and substantial opposition to granting them sole authority over decision-making. If European countries were to harmonise their policies on consent for organ donation, an opt-out system that grants families a surrogate decision-making role may enjoy the widest public support
I Just Want Some Clear Answers”
Health risk communication plays a crucial role in preventing the spread of infectious disease outbreaks such as the current coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). Yet, migrants are far too often forgotten in health risk communication responses. We investigate the challenges and efforts made by migrants in Denmark-in the initial months of the pandemic-to access information about COVID-19. We draw on 18 semi-structured interviews conducted in May and June 2020.…
Collaborative intimacies
Pigs and pig organs are frequently used prior to human trials in experimental transplant research into how to optimise human transplantation. But what exactly happens when transplant professionals perform experimental research on pigs? Similarly, what happens when a pig is on the surgical table? Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Danish transplant research laboratories, we investigate how pig experiments facilitate 'collaborative intimacies' amon…
Channeling hope
Ud i verden
Ud i verden
Meet the local policy workers
Reporting on an interview and observation-based study in Danish municipalities, this article deals with local policy workers and takes it's departure in the great variation we observed in implementation of centrally issued health promotion guidelines. We present five types of local policy workers, each of whom we found typified a specific way of reasoning and implementing the guidelines. This typology illustrates the diversity found within a grou…
Guardians of 'the gift
This paper deals with the emotional challenges encountered by doctors and nurses caring for heart and lung transplant patients. Organ transplantation enables body parts from the dead to become usable in patients with no other life-saving option. These exchanges are not possible without transplant professionals carefully selecting, guiding and interacting with organ recipients before, during and after the transplant. Based on anthropological field…
Make Sure Somebody Will Survive from This
Based on anthropological fieldwork among Danish organ donor families and hospital staff in neurointensive care units, this article explores the transformative practices of hope in Danish organ donation. Focusing on various phases of the organ donation process, I demonstrate how families and professionals practice hope in astounding ways: when hoping for organs, when hoping for the end of patient suffering, when hoping for the usability of the don…
Transplantation as an abstract good
This article investigates valuations of organ transfers that are currently seen as legitimising increasingly aggressive procurement methods in Denmark. Based on interviews with registered donors and the intensive care unit staff responsible for managing organ donor patients we identify three types of valuation: the needs of recipients, respect for donors' autonomy and support of donors' relatives in their grieving process. Sometimes these modes o…
Transgressive ethics
Occasionally brain-dead organ donors go into cardiac arrest before reaching the operating theater. In such cases, the needed resuscitation of the potential donor stimulates a range of concerns among the responsible staff. If the intensive care unit staff are going to carry out the organ retrieval, they must rush in with demanding treatment measures such as defibrillation shock and cardiac massage that may break breast bones and make the donor vom…
Searching for meaningful aftermaths
Experiencing the process of consenting to organ donation can be traumatic and devastating to organ donor families. By empirically focusing on Danish and North American donor families, this article argues that donor families are searching for a meaningful aftermath by trying to interpret their experiences in various ways. The discussion of the complexity of how the donor family experiences are perceived and articulated is unfolded by focusing on t…
A Sense of Absence
Når døde børn er livets gave - Unisex moderskab og organdonation i USA
Dead children as ";the gift of life";. Unisex motherhood and organ donation in America The focus of this article is how American women, especially mothers of organ donors dominate organizational support efforts for donor families, the implications this has for men, and the many new understandings of motherhood this medical context gives rise to. Based on anthropological field studies from the US, this article analyses the efforts of American orga…
Make Sure Somebody Will Survive from This
Based on anthropological fieldwork among Danish organ donor families and hospital staff in neurointensive care units, this article explores the transformative practices of hope in Danish organ donation. Focusing on various phases of the organ donation process, I demonstrate how families and professionals practice hope in astounding ways: when hoping for organs, when hoping for the end of patient suffering, when hoping for the usability of the don…
Transplantation as an abstract good
This article investigates valuations of organ transfers that are currently seen as legitimising increasingly aggressive procurement methods in Denmark. Based on interviews with registered donors and the intensive care unit staff responsible for managing organ donor patients we identify three types of valuation: the needs of recipients, respect for donors' autonomy and support of donors' relatives in their grieving process. Sometimes these modes o…
Searching for meaningful aftermaths
Experiencing the process of consenting to organ donation can be traumatic and devastating to organ donor families. By empirically focusing on Danish and North American donor families, this article argues that donor families are searching for a meaningful aftermath by trying to interpret their experiences in various ways. The discussion of the complexity of how the donor family experiences are perceived and articulated is unfolded by focusing on t…
Channeling hope
Guardians of 'the gift
This paper deals with the emotional challenges encountered by doctors and nurses caring for heart and lung transplant patients. Organ transplantation enables body parts from the dead to become usable in patients with no other life-saving option. These exchanges are not possible without transplant professionals carefully selecting, guiding and interacting with organ recipients before, during and after the transplant. Based on anthropological field…
Transgressive ethics
Occasionally brain-dead organ donors go into cardiac arrest before reaching the operating theater. In such cases, the needed resuscitation of the potential donor stimulates a range of concerns among the responsible staff. If the intensive care unit staff are going to carry out the organ retrieval, they must rush in with demanding treatment measures such as defibrillation shock and cardiac massage that may break breast bones and make the donor vom…
Collaborative intimacies
Pigs and pig organs are frequently used prior to human trials in experimental transplant research into how to optimise human transplantation. But what exactly happens when transplant professionals perform experimental research on pigs? Similarly, what happens when a pig is on the surgical table? Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Danish transplant research laboratories, we investigate how pig experiments facilitate 'collaborative intimacies' amon…
The video window
In the contemporary landscape of technologically mediated healthcare, video consultations introduce a dynamic interplay of challenges and opportunities. Taking the notion of 'the art of medicine' as an analytical frame, and drawing on interviews with medical specialists as well as participant observation of video consultations with patients (carried out between February 2022 and January 2023), this article investigates how video consultation tech…
Meet the local policy workers
Reporting on an interview and observation-based study in Danish municipalities, this article deals with local policy workers and takes it's departure in the great variation we observed in implementation of centrally issued health promotion guidelines. We present five types of local policy workers, each of whom we found typified a specific way of reasoning and implementing the guidelines. This typology illustrates the diversity found within a grou…
Når døde børn er livets gave - Unisex moderskab og organdonation i USA
Dead children as ";the gift of life";. Unisex motherhood and organ donation in America The focus of this article is how American women, especially mothers of organ donors dominate organizational support efforts for donor families, the implications this has for men, and the many new understandings of motherhood this medical context gives rise to. Based on anthropological field studies from the US, this article analyses the efforts of American orga…
A Sense of Absence
Searching for meaningful aftermaths
Experiencing the process of consenting to organ donation can be traumatic and devastating to organ donor families. By empirically focusing on Danish and North American donor families, this article argues that donor families are searching for a meaningful aftermath by trying to interpret their experiences in various ways. The discussion of the complexity of how the donor family experiences are perceived and articulated is unfolded by focusing on t…
Transgressive ethics
Occasionally brain-dead organ donors go into cardiac arrest before reaching the operating theater. In such cases, the needed resuscitation of the potential donor stimulates a range of concerns among the responsible staff. If the intensive care unit staff are going to carry out the organ retrieval, they must rush in with demanding treatment measures such as defibrillation shock and cardiac massage that may break breast bones and make the donor vom…
Transplantation as an abstract good
This article investigates valuations of organ transfers that are currently seen as legitimising increasingly aggressive procurement methods in Denmark. Based on interviews with registered donors and the intensive care unit staff responsible for managing organ donor patients we identify three types of valuation: the needs of recipients, respect for donors' autonomy and support of donors' relatives in their grieving process. Sometimes these modes o…
Make Sure Somebody Will Survive from This
Based on anthropological fieldwork among Danish organ donor families and hospital staff in neurointensive care units, this article explores the transformative practices of hope in Danish organ donation. Focusing on various phases of the organ donation process, I demonstrate how families and professionals practice hope in astounding ways: when hoping for organs, when hoping for the end of patient suffering, when hoping for the usability of the don…
Guardians of 'the gift
This paper deals with the emotional challenges encountered by doctors and nurses caring for heart and lung transplant patients. Organ transplantation enables body parts from the dead to become usable in patients with no other life-saving option. These exchanges are not possible without transplant professionals carefully selecting, guiding and interacting with organ recipients before, during and after the transplant. Based on anthropological field…
Meet the local policy workers
Reporting on an interview and observation-based study in Danish municipalities, this article deals with local policy workers and takes it's departure in the great variation we observed in implementation of centrally issued health promotion guidelines. We present five types of local policy workers, each of whom we found typified a specific way of reasoning and implementing the guidelines. This typology illustrates the diversity found within a grou…
Channeling hope
Ud i verden
Ud i verden
Collaborative intimacies
Pigs and pig organs are frequently used prior to human trials in experimental transplant research into how to optimise human transplantation. But what exactly happens when transplant professionals perform experimental research on pigs? Similarly, what happens when a pig is on the surgical table? Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Danish transplant research laboratories, we investigate how pig experiments facilitate 'collaborative intimacies' amon…
I Just Want Some Clear Answers”
Health risk communication plays a crucial role in preventing the spread of infectious disease outbreaks such as the current coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). Yet, migrants are far too often forgotten in health risk communication responses. We investigate the challenges and efforts made by migrants in Denmark-in the initial months of the pandemic-to access information about COVID-19. We draw on 18 semi-structured interviews conducted in May and June 2020.…
Attitudes of European students towards family decision-making and the harmonisation of consent systems in deceased organ donation
There is overall division on whether families should have a surrogate role, and substantial opposition to granting them sole authority over decision-making. If European countries were to harmonise their policies on consent for organ donation, an opt-out system that grants families a surrogate decision-making role may enjoy the widest public support
Making it happen
Danish transplant coordinators handle all data and logistics involved with the removal and transfer of organs from the body of an organ donor into several recipients in other Scandinavian hospitals. This entails a wide range of data work, not only in relation to sudden organ donation cases, but also to documenting transplantations, providing feedback on donation outcomes, and facilitating the data needed by surgeons or other health professionals.…
Venturing Inside the Body
When patients who undergo awake arthroscopic surgery follow the surgery on a screen, medical image technologies enable a rare look inside one's own body. Based on ethnographic fieldwork at an orthopedic surgery unit in Denmark, we investigate how patients experience their bodies during surgery. Patients see surgery as proof of their pain, experience an anatomical re-categorization, and contemplate the decay of the aging body. We argue that awake …
Compassionate deception
This article uses the concept of compassionate deception to understand the complexity and duality at stake when health professionals and family members lie when caring for people with dementia. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork at two Danish nursing homes, we argue that compassionate deception conceptually illustrates the fine balance we observed of using lies and deception, while simultaneously acting with recognition and care towards residents.…
The video window
In the contemporary landscape of technologically mediated healthcare, video consultations introduce a dynamic interplay of challenges and opportunities. Taking the notion of 'the art of medicine' as an analytical frame, and drawing on interviews with medical specialists as well as participant observation of video consultations with patients (carried out between February 2022 and January 2023), this article investigates how video consultation tech…
On-screen medicine. How patients present themselves to medical specialists in video consultations
“Thanks Piggie”
Every day research animals of different species are made to live and die in research facilities as part of biomedical research. This article looks at the killing of livestock pigs for organs to be used in transplant science; a science driven by goals to save human lives by improving the use of donated organs. Based on an ethnographic study carried out in Denmark and the US, we explore how people engage in killing pigs and what it takes for humans…
Waiting as a frontier
Uterus transplantation (UTx) is an emerging frontier in reproductive medicine, that offers women born without a uterus the possibility of gestation through transplantation. While clinical programs are being established elsewhere, UTx remains unavailable in Denmark, where it has existed for nearly a decade as an anticipated yet inaccessible option. Based on in-depth interviews conducted between 2023 and 2025, this article explores experiences of w…
Medicine (14 works) · Psychology (13 works) · Organ Donation and Transplantation (10 works) · Political science (9 works) · Danish (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Transplantation (7 works) · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Organ donation (6 works)