Synopses & Reviews
Organ transplant in Mexico is overwhelmingly a family matter, utterly dependent on kidneys from living relativesandmdash;not from stranger donors typical elsewhere. Yet Mexican transplant is also a public affair that is proudly performed primarily in state-run hospitals. In Domesticating Organ Transplant, Megan Crowley-Matoka examines the intimate dynamics and complex politics of kidney transplant, drawing on extensive fieldwork with patients, families, medical professionals, and government and religious leaders in Guadalajara. Weaving together haunting stories and sometimes surprising statistics culled from hundreds of transplant cases, she offers nuanced insight into the way iconic notions about mothers, miracles, and mestizos shape how some lives are saved and others are risked through transplantation. Crowley-Matoka argues that as familial donors render transplant culturally familiar, this fraught form of medicine is deeply enabled in Mexico by its domestication as both private matter of home and proud product of the nation. Analyzing the everyday effects of transplantandrsquo;s own iconic power as an intervention that exemplifies medicineandrsquo;s death-defying promise and commodifying perils, Crowley-Matoka illuminates how embodied experience, clinical practice, and national identity produce one another.
Review
andquot;This superbly crafted ethnography draws readers deeply into the domain of organ transplantation in Guadalajara, Mexico. Megan Crowley-Matoka lays bare the ubiquitous moral and social consequences, tragic and joyful, associated with kidney transfer from one family member to another, that reverberate for years among extended family members, transplant teams, and society at large. These findings have implications for all forms of medical manipulation involving the procurement and transfer of bodily material among humankind.andquot;and#160;
Review
andquot;Domesticating Organ Transplant is an insightful, ethnographically rich, and original work that adds to the growing corpus of anthropological scholarship on human organ transfer. Megan Crowley-Matokaand#39;s in-depth work with families, firm grounding in bioethics, and ability to interweave key analytical conceptsandmdash;such as bioavailability, domesticity, blame, and materialityandmdash;is compelling. Crowley-Matokaand#39;s profound observations and analyses in this beautifully written and heartfelt book took my breath away.andquot;
Synopsis
In Domesticating Organ Transplant Megan Crowley-Matoka examines the iconic power of kidney transplantation in Mexico, where the procedure is inexorably linked to the imaginings of individual and national identity, national pride, and the role of women in creating the Mexican state.
About the Author
Megan Crowley-Matoka is Assistant Professor of Medical Humanities and Bioethics at Northwestern University.