Organ transplantation in a globalised world

Organ donation and transplantation, now practiced in many places around the world, provoke fundamental questions of both meaning and social justice. Drawing on ethnographic research in North America, Japan, Mexico, Europe, and India, this paper offers a comparative view of how transplantation is practiced and experienced in different settings, focusing on variation across three key issues consistently raised by transplantation: (1) the (re)definition of death, (2) conceptions of body, self, and identity; and (3) the commodification of human body parts. Exploring this cross-cultural variation provides critical resources for continuing to grapple with the ever-evolving questions of practice and meaning raised by transplantation, as we debate transplantation as it is, could, and should be.