Session 14 Class Discussion- Circulation of Substances: body, relationality, personhood

We began our discussion by considering the relationship between the body and personhood within the ‘secular tradition’ of science and law. There seem to be contesting ideas about this relationship, and neither law nor science seem to have a clear conception of who (or what) constitutes a living person. While bodily (biological)-materiality of the person seems emphasized in this recognition, the non-material is central to notions of free- will, morality and agency that are central in law, thus bringing in the need to account for consciousness. Ethical dilemmas about abortion or assisted death are debated on this terrain of seeking to determine what constitutes a ‘living person’- is it the body, a well-functioning body or a person who can make choices about her or his own body? Even as science moves to areas such as cryogenics which demand new ways to think about the body and personhood, ethical frameworks derived from law (which in turn derive from rationalist principles as well as remnants of religious moralities) take time to alter. Also, science which claims to function in a realm of ethical neutrality is deeply embedded in socio-political contestations.

Commodification of the human body (including its parts or substances) raises ethical concerns, not only about self-commodification but the circumstances within which such commodification occurs. As Hughes forcefully argues, to see the trade in human organs merely as a transaction would elide the structural inequalities within which it occurs. How then do we understand these transactions and what they represent? Is there a way to account for ‘choice’ within such transactions? Can there be an ethic that pits the value of persons against capitalist humiliation?

We also discussed how Strathern’s notion of the partible person may compare with Hughes notion of the person. While Strathern conceptualized the possibility of a personhood in which the individual and social were not dichotomous entities, Hughes seems to emphasize individual-rights over her or his body. Even as we recognise the political urgency of Hughes demand to make ‘choice’ problematic, how do we consider the idea of individual-rights over the body in the context of neoliberalism which seeks to impose this as a ‘natural’ or given idea?

Questions about who controls knowledge, and how knowledge may be utilised came up for discussion. Ethics, in the modern bio-pharmaceutical industry has become a highly malleable term. While companies constitute ethical committees and express commitment to ethics, this malleability allows it to remain a largely perfunctory exercise. In this context, fields like bio-ethics/law which have recently sprung up seem to have to keep up with, and more importantly perhaps, seem to evolve their conceptions of persons / ethics, in response to scientific developments, often, perhaps even favouring them.

In the last part of the class, we discussed the role of metaphors in cultural anthropology, and the attempt to unpack what these metaphors stand for. Apart from expressions of relationality or disruption, the metaphor of blood also stands for the kinds of circulation we see in contemporary capitalism- which is not just prices, goods, services going one way – but also body, body parts that are mobile and are being circulated; and have human costs – but stand erased in the abstract /scientific / metaphoric representation of the working model of the economy.


-Maithreyi and Savitha