ANTHROP 2R03 Lecture 24: Lecture 24 - Brain Death and Organ Transplantation
11 Feb 2019
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Document Summary
Social death: occurs when person who is physically alive is treated as if dead, often happens in our society to those in geriatric institutions with dementia, alzheimer"s, can happen to criminals, people with certain stigmatized diseases. In non-western societies, people who commit anti-social acts (suspected sorcerers) may be ostracized: often, physical and social death coincide temporally, memorial or funeral service marks social death of person after biological death, social death can precede physical death. Important since late 1970s in north america to define brain death as death of person in order to facilitate organ harvesting for transplants. Japanese perspectives on brain death and organ transplantation: margaret lock professor of anthropology at mcgill university, has done research in. In contrast to japan, in north america, organs can be removed for transplant from anyone diagnosed as brain dead if the person"s desire to donate organs can reasonably be ascertained; family cannot over-rule.
