Vital Publics of Pure Blood

Abstract

Blood supplies have become indexes of national security and the public good. While blood shortages can provoke anxiety, controversies continue to erupt in many countries over proper donor screening, especially with reference to HIV. This article sketches these dynamics in several global settings, focusing especially on activist efforts by gay men to reform exclusionary blood donor guidelines. The contours of the debate recall familiar conflicts between the putative demands of public health and the rights of individuals in the era of AIDS. However, if gay activists marshal a discourse of individual rights vis-a-vis forms of institutional exclusion, they also seek a broader shift in social and cultural understandings of gay identity. To capture this complex interplay of citizenship and sociality, risk and responsibility, the article introduces the notion of 'vital publics' to refer to the peculiar associational form represented by blood supplies. Vital publics are kinds of embodied association elicited through the generalized exchange of body -in this case, blood. Hailed to 'give life' by the jargon of the pervasive social marketing of varied blood service systems, activists seek to contribute to the life of the 'vital public' that transfusion medicine calls into being.

The specter of “bad blood” in Japanese blood banks

“…Yet, the opposite trend is also noted in many ethnographic and historical studies of blood banks. The screening of blood providers, for instance, often evokes different qualities of blood associated with particular populations, who are stigmatized and excluded based on the calculation of risks and the fear of contagion (Kent and Farrell 2015;Kretzmann 1992;Seeman 1999;Strong 2009;Valentine 2005).…”

Cord blood banking – bio-objects on the borderlands between community and immunity

“…Blood donation ‘remains a public practice … that certain kinds of public are precluded from’ ( ibid : 116). Indeed, political engagements around ‘individual rights vis-à-vis forms of institutional exclusion’ (Strong 2009 : 172) highlight just how contradictory the communitas of blood can be.…”

The symbolic roots of blood donation

“…In the United States, it was not long before Haitians were likewise singled out. Analysis of situations in which “foreign” blood was rejected following a blood drive reveals sensitive issues surrounding the belonging to a community and the refusal to share in a “blood fraternity.” Analysis of controversies surrounding the exclusion of homosexuals from the practice of blood donation also suggests that blood remains an important cultural symbol for maintaining order in society …”