Commodifying Bodies

Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Sociology
Cover of the book Commodifying Bodies by , SAGE Publications
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: ISBN: 9781446236079
Publisher: SAGE Publications Publication: October 10, 2002
Imprint: SAGE Publications Ltd Language: English
Author:
ISBN: 9781446236079
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Publication: October 10, 2002
Imprint: SAGE Publications Ltd
Language: English

Increasingly the body is a possession that does not belong to us. It is bought and sold, bartered and stolen, marketed wholesale or in parts. The professions - especially reproductive medicine, transplant surgery, and bioethics but also journalism and other cultural specialists - have been pliant partners in this accelerating commodification of live and dead human organisms. Under the guise of healing or research, they have contributed to a new 'ethic of parts' for which the divisible body is severed from the self, torn from the social fabric, and thrust into commercial transactions -- as organs, secretions, reproductive capacities, and tissues -- responding to the dictates of an incipiently global marketplace.

Breaking with established approaches which prioritize the body as 'text', the chapters in this book examine not only images of the body-turned-merchandise but actually existing organisms considered at once as material entities, semi-magical tokens, symbolic vectors and founts of lived experience. The topics covered range from the cultural disposal and media treatment of corpses, the biopolitics of cells, sperm banks and eugenics, to the international trafficking of kidneys, the development of 'transplant tourism', to the idioms of corporeal exploitation among prizefighters as a limiting case of fleshly commodity.

This insightful and arresting volume combines perspectives from anthropology, law, medicine, and sociology to offer compelling analyses of the concrete ways in which the body is made into a commodity and how its marketization in turn remakes social relations and cultural meanings.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Increasingly the body is a possession that does not belong to us. It is bought and sold, bartered and stolen, marketed wholesale or in parts. The professions - especially reproductive medicine, transplant surgery, and bioethics but also journalism and other cultural specialists - have been pliant partners in this accelerating commodification of live and dead human organisms. Under the guise of healing or research, they have contributed to a new 'ethic of parts' for which the divisible body is severed from the self, torn from the social fabric, and thrust into commercial transactions -- as organs, secretions, reproductive capacities, and tissues -- responding to the dictates of an incipiently global marketplace.

Breaking with established approaches which prioritize the body as 'text', the chapters in this book examine not only images of the body-turned-merchandise but actually existing organisms considered at once as material entities, semi-magical tokens, symbolic vectors and founts of lived experience. The topics covered range from the cultural disposal and media treatment of corpses, the biopolitics of cells, sperm banks and eugenics, to the international trafficking of kidneys, the development of 'transplant tourism', to the idioms of corporeal exploitation among prizefighters as a limiting case of fleshly commodity.

This insightful and arresting volume combines perspectives from anthropology, law, medicine, and sociology to offer compelling analyses of the concrete ways in which the body is made into a commodity and how its marketization in turn remakes social relations and cultural meanings.

More books from SAGE Publications

Cover of the book Creating Successful Learning Environments for African American Learners With Exceptionalities by
Cover of the book Making Teaching Work by
Cover of the book A Guide to Intra-state Wars by
Cover of the book Hinduism in India by
Cover of the book Qualitative Research in Education by
Cover of the book Multicultural School Psychology Competencies by
Cover of the book Handbook for Social Justice in Counseling Psychology by
Cover of the book Organization Development by
Cover of the book An Introduction to Gestalt by
Cover of the book README FIRST for a User's Guide to Qualitative Methods by
Cover of the book Passive Revolution in West Bengal by
Cover of the book From Good Schools to Great Schools by
Cover of the book Environmental Conflict Management by
Cover of the book Race and Criminal Justice by
Cover of the book Multiple Correspondence Analysis by
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy