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Parts unknownUndercover ethnography of the organs-trafficking underworldUniversity of California, Berkeley, USA nsh{at}snowy.sscl.berkeley.edu This article addresses some of the ethical, ethnographic and political dilemmas of an idiosyncratic multi-sited research project exploring the illegal and covert activities surrounding the traffic in humans and their body parts by outlaw surgeons, kidney hunters and transplant tourists engaged in ‘back-door’ transplants in the global economy. In its odd juxtapositions of ethnography, documentation, surveillance and human rights work, the project blends genres and transgresses longstanding distinctions between anthropology, political journalism, scientific reporting, political engagement, public interest anthropology and human rights work. How does one investigate covert and criminal behavior anthropologically? When, if ever (and on what grounds), is it permissible to conduct research ‘under cover’? When crimes are being committed, to whom does one owe one’s divided loyalties? Following a discussion of politically engaged research I pluck a few ‘backstage’ scenes from this Goffmanesque study of the organs trade to illustrate the very different forms, practices and emotions it encompasses. I want to recapture the ‘basic strangeness’ of a routine medical procedure – kidney transplant – that has become increasingly dependent on medically supported claims and rights to the healthy bodies of marginalized ‘others’. I close with an argument against bioethics and its capitulations to medical markets in bodies.
Key Words: undercover ethnography • hybrid research: documentation • surveillance and human rights work • scholarship with commitment • organs-trafficking
Ethnography, Vol. 5, No. 1,
29-73 (2004) This article has been cited by other articles:
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