The purpose of the project is to examine from a multidisciplinary basis a medical technology in a state of rapid change: organ transplantation. From perspectives in ethnology, the history of ideas, and philosophy, individuals’ and society’s views on the body in the case of organ transplantation are studied – how norms and values regarding the body are engendered and have consequences for the way the activity of transplantation is organised. The ambition is, through four sub-studies, both to find explanations by the application of cultural studies and to find philosophical normative arguments. The project is launched from three metaphors – the body as gift, resource and commodity – in which the relation between person and body is at stake and is constituted. These metaphoric themes are examined from a starting point partly in the joint programmes existing between Scandinavia and the Baltic States for the exchange of organs, and partly in the illegal trade in organs that is growing strong in Eastern Europe. Although the gift is the sanctioned metaphor for donating organs, the underlying perspective from the side of state and authorities seems often to be that the body shall be understood as a resource. The acute scarcity of organs, which generates a desperate demand in relation to a supply that is desperate to an equal extent, leads easily to the gift’s becoming, in reality, a commodity. Is the gift metaphor successful and relevant for describing the relation between a person and that person’s body on the one hand, and other persons who need (wish for) parts of that body on the other? How is the gift metaphor – and the other possible metaphors – interpreted in the case of organ transplantation by those who administer the exchange and by those who undergo it? The project is designed to study and respond empirically, conceptually and normatively to the questions above through four different sub-projects. There is a particular focus on an empirical comparison between Scandinavia (primarily Sweden) and Eastern Europe (especially Latvia) that runs through the entire project. The research group consists of one philosopher (sub-study one: Fredrik Svenaeus) and one historian of ideas (sub-study two: Ulla Ekström von Essen) from the School of Culture and Communication, Södertörns högskola (Södertörn University College); and two ethnologists from the Department of European Ethnology, Lund University (sub-study three: Markus Idvall; sub-study four: Susanne Lundin); together with one doctoral student. The theoretical perspectives that characterise and bind together the different disciplinary orientations in the respective sub-projects consist principally in phenomenological, comparative and cultural-analytical methods.

En introduktion till projektet och dess problematiker ges i följande artiklar av projektdeltagare:

Fredrik Svenaeus: “Högt pris när själens boning reas ut”, SvD, Under strecket, 17 april 2008:
http://www.svd.se/kulturnoje/understrecket/artikel_1143173.svd

Fredrik Svenaeus: “Tungt att bära ett främmande hjärta”, SvD, Under strecket, 18 april 2008:
http://www.svd.se/kulturnoje/understrecket/artikel_1148669.svd

Susanne Lundin: “När kroppen blir en vara”, Sydsvenska Dagbladet, 10 juli 2008:
http://sydsvenskan.se/kultur/article344888.ece