Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how the different normativities that underpin social studies of donation have contributed to shaping the ways in which the topic has been rendered. It will sharpen STS tools to navigate conflicting normativities and to address the ethico-political question of intervention.

Paper long abstract:

Organ donation has received considerable attention within the social sciences. This paper will examine how the different normativities that underpin existing social studies have contributed to shaping the ways in which deceased donation has been rendered. Firstly, the polarised moral landscape will be analysed by juxtaposing the antagonistic ethical normativities that populate the literature; either those that take a denunciatory critical angle on the practices of procurement and unveil the bads of donation, or conversely those that justify and praise organ donation as a healthcare practice legitimised by the commendable goods of caring for donors and saving lives with transplants. Secondly, I will show how an STS material semiotics approach enabled me to offer a novel account of donation outside the aforementioned conflicting normativities. Crucially, in this story donation is studied ethnographically and articulated as an integrated healthcare practice but with a set of enduring difficulties that can neither be removed, nor justified or vilified with an appeal to reasons and an individual rights-based normative stance. The empirical investigation is committed to accounting for the practicalities and specificities that condition and constrain the given medical practices. The STS task at hand is to navigate the conflicting normativities and to grapple with the entrenched complexities and difficulties whilst moving within, and expanding, the interstitial spaces between critique and justification. Lastly, I will elucidate how STS analytic tools can be sharpened and mobilised to intervene in bioethical debates by furnishing them with situated knowledge from the practices and the practitioners involved.