In our September 2016 issue, we received these books for review at the journal. The new releases span social science methods, to two ethnographies of biomedicine and human plasticity (available here and here), and finally, two texts on organ transplantation across cultural contexts. This includes Heinemann’s Transplanting Care and Crowley-Matoka’s Domesticating Organ Transplant.

Last year, we featured a book release update on Crowley-Matoka’s work on organ transplantation in Mexico. Here, we revisit the original book release (accessible here.)

Image via Duke UP

Released this March 2016 from Duke University Press is Megan Crowley-Matoka’s Domesticating Organ Transplant: Familial Sacrifice and National Aspiration in Mexico. The text explores the familial nature of kidney transplantation in Mexico, where the organs are donated between relatives rather than received by strangers. Crowley-Matoka also examines kidney transplant in Mexico beyond the family unit, assessing national pride in transplantation procedures performed at hospitals operated by the state. Through family and government, organ transplantation thus becomes an iconic procedure in Mexican society– both within the home and across the nation– that represents the curative promise of contemporary medicine. Crowley-Matoka’s ethnography highlights the relationships between embodied experience, domestic life, national identity, and clinical practice. This text will appeal widely to scholars who study biomedicine in the Americas, the connections between medicine and the state, and familial networks of caregiving.

About the author: Megan Crowley-Matoka is Assistant Professor of Medical Humanities and Bioethics at Northwestern University. You can access more details about her upcoming book here.