TY  - JOUR
AU  - Voyce, Malcolm
PY  - 2020
DA  - 2020/11/16
TI  - Mauss and Organ Transplants: Ideas of Connectivity between Recipients and Donors and the “Spirit of the Gift”
JO  - OBM Transplantation
SP  - 124
VL  - 04
IS  - 04
AB  - This article aims to describe the relationship between donors and their recipients in the context of organ transplants. This analysis is made in the light of Marcel Mauss’s work, offering an expansion on an analysis of his discussion on the “spirit of the gift” and his idea that gifts require reciprocation. It is argued that some recipients of donated organs receive a personal element from the donor in that there is a transfer or sharing of the donors’ personality and spiritual qualities. The article examines the nature of this form of “interconnectedness”. The article considers the qualities of this form of interconnectedness between donors and recipients by examining two specific cases of gift giving. One such case concerns the accounts of the reception of organs by recipients and how they may feel connected with a donated entity. The second case of gifting is the case of Tibetan lamas concerning their funeral ceremonies, where, following cremation, their relics are donated to disciples. This “donation” does not take place by dissecting useable parts of a body for use in another person, but rather by ingestion of the remains of the corpse following cremation. This example shows how such “donations” are seen as incorporating the spiritual qualities and attributes of the donor [1]. The article concludes that while scholars have employed different forms of metaphors to understand the cultural context of organ donations this article analyzes the elements of the “spirit of the gift.” This form of analysis may best be understood in terms of Mauss’s notions of the return of the gift and the creation of a “communal bond”.
SN  - 2577-5820
UR  - https://doi.org/10.21926/obm.transplant.2004124
DO  - 10.21926/obm.transplant.2004124
ID  - Voyce2020
ER  -