Paper short abstract:

Four surveys (2009 -2011) with 184 blood donors in Québec, revealed a paradoxical amalgam of representations associated with blood, drawing on new scientific culture, old medical myths, religious justifications and diverse cultural conceptions. What does it mean to be a blood donor today?

Paper long abstract:

In a blood drive, the moment when the agency arrives to gather the blood bags is implicitly considered as the moment when blood, charged with symbolic significance for the donor, becomes a regulated, standardized and functional product. Four surveys conducted from 2009 to 2011 with 184 blood donors in Québec (54 of them from diverse ethnic minority backgrounds) reveal that the separation between symbol and substance does not reflect this presumed line of demarcation between the donor and the agency. The scientific terminology used by young donors in Québec, the fact that they determine their value as a donor in terms of the rarity of their blood type, and that some of them justify giving blood by the simple wish not to waste a renewable bodily substance—all this suggests a strong internalization of the scientific perspective on blood donation. But not all donors represent blood in this way; the survey actually reveals a paradoxical and frequently contradictory amalgam of representations associated with blood, drawing on old medical myths (bloodletting and regeneration), religious justifications (the sacrifice of spilt blood, but the reminder that blood transfusion is a modern practice free of religious constraints) and diverse cultural conceptions (the preciousness of blood that justifies sharing it only with family members or, on the contrary, with as many people as possible; the fear of illness transmitted through a stranger's blood, but acknowledgement of the universal right to blood). What does it mean to be a blood donor today?

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