Intimate gifts and 'bad' deaths

Reflections on organ transplants, state and society in Gujarat

Bibliographic Data

ID3865280
AuthorsFarhana Ibrahim (corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume48
Issue2
Pages165-190
Publication date2014-06-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueContributions to Indian Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0069-9659 • E-ISSN: 0069-9667
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0069966714525161
OpenAlexW2091293350
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited24

This article is an ethnographic perspective on organ donation in the western Indian state of Gujarat. It suggests that debates around organ donation-from the perspective of religion as well as state-become critical to an understanding of not just how a global discourse translates into a local cultural context, but also how it configures specific cultural subjectivities around religion, death and violence. Through a discussion on how organ donation is framed by law and society as a desirable social good in general and as dan in particular, the article concludes that the emergent public discourse on organ transplant finds an 'elective affinity' with Hindu and Jain debates on death, rendering itself as a discourse that excludes Gujarat's Muslims. Given the violence that configures recent Gujarati Muslim experiences of death, the article asks what the social consequences of organ donation discourses are for those who cannot share in the discursive construction of organ donation as a celebratory exercise in gift giving

Context (archaeology · Criminology · Donation · Ethnography · Organ donation · Political science · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health · History · Law · Medicine · Organ Donation and Transplantation · Transplantation

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