Abstract
This chapter explores narratives of kinship about both organ donation and donor sperm conception. We frame the chapter through a focus on the instrumentalization of non-human animals with regard to breeding, and from there explore how such instrumentalization is both implied in, and resisted by, narratives of organ and sperm donation. By exploring how both organs and sperm are treated as synecdoches for whole people, we discuss the complex accounts of kinship provided by a sample of recipients of cadaveric organs and a sample of donor-conceived people taken from television programmes and documentaries.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Prior to the Renaissance the view that the heart was the source of the soul, thinking, memory, emotions, and personality was prevalent, especially in the Egyptian period and in Europe in the Middle Ages. That much influential literature was written when the heart’s function was significantly more expansive than simply to pump blood may explain why this association has persisted.
References
Armbruster, K. (2010). Into the wild: Response, respect, and the human control of canine sexuality and reproduction. JAC, 30, 755–783.
Blyth, E., Crawshaw, M., Frith, L., & Jones, C. (2012). Donor-conceived people’s views and experiences of their genetic origins: A critical analysis of the research evidence. Journal of Law and Medicine, 19(4), 769–789.
Blyth, E. (2012a). Genes r us? Making sense of genetic and non-genetic relationships following anonymous donor insemination. Reproductive Biomedicine Online, 24(7), 719–726.
Blyth, E. (2012b). Discovering the ‘facts of life’ following anonymous donor insemination. International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family, 26(2), 143–161.
Carsten, J. (2004). After kinship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Davis, K. (2014). Anthropomorphic visions of chickens bred for human consumption. In J. Sorenson (Ed.), Critical animal studies: Thinking the unthinkable (pp. 169–185). Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press.
Harrigan, M. M., Dieter, S., Leinwohl, J., & Marrin, L. (2015). “It’s just who I am… I have brown hair. I have a mysterious father”: An exploration of donor-conceived offspring’s identity construction. Journal of Family Communication, 15(1), 75–93.
Jacob, M. A. (2012). Matching organs with donors: Legality and kinship in transplants. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Lévi-Strauss, C. (1969). The elementary structures of kinship. Boston: Beacon Press.
McCormack, D. (2016). Transplant temporalities and deadly reproductive futurity in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s 21 Grams. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 19(1), 51–68.
Moore, L. J. (2008). Sperm counts: Overcome by man’s most precious fluid. New York: New York University Press.
NeighborsGo. (2012). Living to tell: Stories of lives saved by organ donation. Dallas: Dallas Morning News.
Nordqvist, P., & Smart, C. (2014). Relative strangers: Family life, genes and donor conception. Hampshire: Palgrave.
Riggs, D. W., & Scholz, B. (2011). The value and meaning attached to genetic relatedness amongst Australian sperm donors. New Genetics and Society, 30, 41–58.
Sanner, M. A. (2003). Transplant recipients’ conceptions of three key phenomena in transplantation: The organ donation, the organ donor, and the organ transplant. Clinical Transplantation, 17, 391–400.
Sharp, L. A. (1995). Organ transplantation as a transformative experience: Anthropological insights into the restructuring of the self. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 9(3), 357–389.
Sharp, L. A. (2006). Strange harvest: Organ transplants, denatured bodies, and the transformed self. California: University of California Press.
Sharp, L. A. (2011). Monkey business: Interspecies longing and scientific prophecy in experimental xenotransplantation. Social Text, 29(1), 43–69.
Shildrick, M. (2012). Imagining the heart: Incorporations, intrusions and identity. Somatechnics, 2, 233–249.
Strathern, M. (1992). Reproducing the future: Anthropology, kinship, and the new reproductive technologies. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Thomson, M. (2008). Endowed: Regulating the male sexed body. London: Routledge.
Turner, A. J., & Coyle, A. (2000). What does it mean to be a donor offspring? The identity experiences of adults conceived by donor insemination and the implications for counselling and therapy. Human Reproduction, 15(9), 2041–2051.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2016 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Riggs, D.W., Peel, E. (2016). Donor Connections. In: Critical Kinship Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50505-7_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50505-7_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-50504-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-50505-7
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)