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Part of the Plan?
L. Heinemann, Laura
L. Heinemann, Laura
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n2011-36.pdf
Adobe PDF, 188.12 KB
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"This article will mark a small step toward better understanding the lived experiences – what medical anthropologist Arthur Kleinman calls “the multiple cultural realities of everyday life” (42) – among transplant patients and caregivers facing illness, risky and painful procedures and treatment protocols, even possible death either for themselves or for their loved ones. Throughout, this article will do so by drawing upon qualitative data, gathered through ethnographic fieldwork among patients, caregivers (which in a few cases also were living organ donors), and clinicians, to describe some of the day-to-day experiences of those who are closest to and most personally vested in transplantation. It will highlight evidence that persons making the precarious journey through the transplant process often do so in and through a sense of faith. Here, I use the term “faith” in a double sense, drawing primarily upon its reference to religious beliefs, but also employing its reference to trust in transplantation as a powerful and life-saving endeavor. There, of course, is great diversity within the transplant community, and personal vantage points are shaped not only by religion and interpretations of divine will, but also by socio-cultural contexts, historical moments, political economic factors, and kinship and social networks. While a full account of these factors is beyond the purview of this article, I hope to emplace sufficiently the lives of the persons described below so as to make clear the significance of interpersonal social relationships (on a smaller scale) and sociality (on a grander, macro-social scale) in faith. I will suggest that, rather than being founded in a purely personal, individualistic relationship with the divine, a faith-filled perspective on transplantation also corresponds with a deep engagement in the overarching social moral obligations that pervade and help to sustain this high-tech medical practice."(pg 217)
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2011
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With permission of the license/copyright holder