Occasional Papers

Deadly Disputes
Margaret Lock || download

In Deadly Disputes: Biotechnology and Reconceptualizing the Body in Death in Japan and North America, medical anthropologist Margaret Lock discusses the cultural impact of the iron lung and other means of sustaining life beyond what was once considered the point of death. Lock centers the discussion around the history of brain death in Japan and North America. She argues that the establishment of brain death as a criterion for determining the moment of death in the United States has made routine the harvesting and transplanting of organs from the deceased, whereas in Japan, extensive political and cultural anxiety surrounds nooshi-no-mondai, the “brain death problem,” and the practice of harvesting organs for transplant. Her analysis examines some of the differences between North American/European and Japanese explanations of individuality and how the individual is, or ought to be, treated by society and its institutions. Lock concludes by characterizing some current approaches to the debate of whether or not constant redefinitions of death emperil the mentally weak, the aged, or any group that could be viewed as sources of organs to supply an increasing “market” for transplant surgery.

Commentators Charles Leslie and Guy Micco respond by suggesting further areas of investigation: the political economy of organ transplants both world-wide and in U.S.-style and socialized medical institutions (Leslie); and the ethical problems surrounding definitions of body, identity, and death as medical technology makes available methods for sustaining life beyond the loss of heartbeat and breath (Micco).

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ISBN 1-881865-04-0; April 1995.