| Popis: |
In ‘The politics and performances of European blood procurement’, Nathan Wittock argues that policymakers and sociologists working on and studying blood too often approach blood donation as a ‘gift’ from donors to recipients. This predominant focus on the gift relationship tends to stress the altruist motivations of blood donors, ignoring the high level of complexity on the institutional and the ontological level. In his attempt to re-emphasize the historical, institutional and societal context, Nathan points to the need to reorient this tradition of sociology of blood donation to a sociology of blood procurement. Following an ontological approach, he looks into alternative ways to capture what blood is through specific historic and contemporary networks, and in specific actions. The aim is to open up the debate and think about other-than-gift conceptualizations of blood: e.g. blood as a risk object, an object of citizenship (struggles), an economic object, an object of technocratic policymaking and a medical-therapeutic object. Asking what blood is and highlighting that it can be multiple things, the thesis probes to think about what version is stressed, why, by whom, according to what rules and procedures and using what assumptions. This ontological approach allows to acknowledge the entanglement of blood’s different enactments, and gives way to a more nuanced understanding of the politics and performances of European blood procurement. |
