{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,31]],"date-time":"2025-12-31T15:00:29Z","timestamp":1767193229165,"version":"3.44.0"},"reference-count":50,"publisher":"BMJ","issue":"4","content-domain":{"domain":["bmj.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Med Humanities"],"accepted":{"date-parts":[[2016,8,31]]},"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2016,12]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>This article examines anxieties concerning organ transplantation in Nalo Hopkinson's prize-winning novel <jats:italic>Brown Girl in the Ring<\/jats:italic> (1998). The main focus is how this novel re-imagines subjectivity and selfhood as an embodied metaphor for the reconfiguring of broader sociopolitical relations. In other words, this article analyses the relationship between the transplanted body and the body politic, arguing that a post-transplant identity, where there is little separation between donor and recipient, is the foundation for a politics based on responsibility for others. Such a responsibility poses a challenge to the race and class segregation that is integral to the post-apocalyptic world of Hopkinson's novel. Transplantation is not a utopian vision of an egalitarian society coming together in one body; rather, this biotechnological intervention offers a potentially different mode of thinking what it means to work across race, class and embodied division, while always recalling the violence that might facilitate so-called medical progress.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1136\/medhum-2016-010917","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2016,10,3]],"date-time":"2016-10-03T22:58:19Z","timestamp":1475535499000},"page":"252-258","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1136\/crossmarkpolicy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":5,"title":["Living with others inside the self: decolonising transplantation, selfhood and the body politic in Nalo Hopkinson's <i>Brown Girl in the Ring<\/i>"],"prefix":"10.1136","volume":"42","author":[{"given":"Donna","family":"McCormack","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"239","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2016,10,3]]},"reference":[{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"For discussions on science fiction and race, see, for example: Rutledge GE . Nalo Hopkinson. digitalcommons.unl.edu\/englishfacpubs\/25 2002:1\u201322; Nama A. Black space: imagining race in science fiction film. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008; and Nelson, A. Introduction: Future Texts. Social Text 2002;20:1\u201315.","DOI":"10.1215\/01642472-20-2_71-1"},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.2","unstructured":"Hopkinson N . Brown Girl in the Ring. New York: Hachette, 1998. This novel will be referenced in the body of the article with page numbers in parentheses."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.3","unstructured":"See, for example: Sharp LA . Strange harvest: organ transplants, denatured bodies and the transformed self. Berkeley: University of California, 2006."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.4","unstructured":"Esposito R . Immunitas: the protection and negation of life. Translated by Zakiya Hanafi. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013:2."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.5","unstructured":"Hegel GWF . Phenomenology of spirit. Translated by A. V. Miller. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977:115."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.6","unstructured":"Fanon F . Black skin, White masks. Translated by Charles Lam Markmann. London: Pluto Press, 1967:220."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.7","unstructured":"Lacan J . Ecrits: a selection. Translated by Alan Sheridan. London: Routledge, (1966) 1977:2 and 5."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Shildrick M . Embodying the Monster: encounters with the vulnerable self. London: Sage Publications, 2002:105.","DOI":"10.4135\/9781446220573"},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.9","unstructured":"Ibid. (106)."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.10","unstructured":"Oliver K . Witnessing: beyond recognition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001:189."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.11","unstructured":"Butler J . Precarious life: the powers of mourning and violence. London and New York: Verso, 2004(a):29."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.12","unstructured":"Shildrick. 2002."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.13","unstructured":"Oliver. 2001."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"McCormack D . Queer postcolonial narratives and the ethics of witnessing. New York: Bloomsbury, 2014.","DOI":"10.5040\/9781472543790"},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.15","unstructured":"Butler. 2004(a):49, emphasis added."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.16","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1080\/1353464052000321056"},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.17","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.3828\/extr.2005.46.3.4"},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.18","first-page":"1","article-title":"Serving the Spirits: The Pan-Caribbean African-Derived Religion in Nalo Hopkinson's Brown Girl in the Ring","volume":"6","author":"Coleman","year":"2009","journal-title":"Journal of Caribbean Literatures"},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.19","unstructured":"Ibid. (7)."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Butler J . Undoing gender. London: Routledge, 2004(b):16.","DOI":"10.4324\/9780203499627"},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.21","unstructured":"Bishop KW . American Zombie Gothic: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Walking Dead in Popular Culture. Jefferson: McFarland, 2010:70."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.22","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1215\/07990537-1894186"},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.23","first-page":"397","article-title":"Undead (A Zombie Oriented Ontology)","volume":"23","author":"Cohen","year":"2012","journal-title":"Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts"},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.24","unstructured":"Agamben G . Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Chicago: Stanford University Press, 1998."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.25","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.3828\/extr.2005.46.3.3"},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.26","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1215\/08992363-15-1-11"},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.27","unstructured":"Agamben. 1998:168\u20139."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.28","unstructured":"Butler, 2004(a):74."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.29","unstructured":"Stoler AL . Race and the education of desire: Foucault's history of sexuality and the colonial order of things. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.30","unstructured":"Skloot R . The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks. London: Pan Macmillan, 2011."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.31","unstructured":"McClintock A . Imperial leather: race, gender and sexuality in the colonial conquest. New York: Routledge, 1995."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.32","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Vora K . Life support: biocapital and the new history of outsourced labor. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2015:7.","DOI":"10.5749\/minnesota\/9780816693948.001.0001"},{"key":"#cr-split#-2025092411302393000_42.4.252.33.1","unstructured":"An excellent example of a fictionalised look at the trade in organs is: Frears S . (Dir.) Dirty Pretty Things (DVD). UK: BBC Films, 2002. For examples of extensive anthropological work on organ transfer, see: Scheper-Hughes N. The last commodity: post-human ethics and the global traffic in 'fresh' organs. In: Ong A, Collier SJ, eds. Global assemblages: technology, politics, and ethics as anthropological problems. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2005:145-67"},{"key":"#cr-split#-2025092411302393000_42.4.252.33.2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"and Cohen L. Operability, Bioavailability, and Exception. In: Ong A, Collier SJ, eds. Global assemblages: technology, politics, and ethics as anthropological problems. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2005:79-90.","DOI":"10.1002\/9780470696569.ch5"},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.34","unstructured":"Foucault M . Discipline and Punish: the birth of the prison. Translated by A. Sheridan. New York: Random House, 1977:228."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.35","unstructured":"Esposito. 2008:140."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.36","unstructured":"Mbembe. (26)."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.37","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Nancy J-L . Corpus. Translated by RA. Rand. New York: Fordham University Press, 2008:170.","DOI":"10.2307\/j.ctt13x04c6"},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.38","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Cohen E . A body worth defending: immunity, biopolitics and the apotheosis of the modern body. Durham: Duke University Press, 2009:81.","DOI":"10.1515\/9780822391111"},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.39","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1080\/10714413.2012.687290"},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.40","unstructured":"See, for example: Fox R , Swazey J . Spare parts: organ replacement in American society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.41","unstructured":"See, for example: Sylvia C . with William Novak. A change of heart: the extraordinary story of a man's heart in a woman's body. London: Little, Brown, 1997."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.42","unstructured":"The horror genre is fascinated with organ transplantation. See, for example: Moreau D . (Dir.) The Eye (DVD). USA: Lionsgate, 2008."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.43","unstructured":"For an excellent analysis of the pathologisation of organ recipient experiences, see: Sharp LA . Strange harvest: organ transplants, denatured bodies and the transformed self. Berkeley: University of California, 2006."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.44","unstructured":"Nancy. 2008:162\u20133."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.45","unstructured":"Wood. 2005:324."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.46","unstructured":"Reid. 2005:310."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.47","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Coleman. 2009:10.","DOI":"10.1097\/01268031-200941001-00023"},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.48","unstructured":"McCormack D . The transplant imaginary and its postcolonial hauntings. In: Malmqvist E , Zeiler K, eds . Bodily exchanges, bioethics and border crossing. London: Routledge, 2016:135\u201352."},{"key":"2025092411302393000_42.4.252.49","unstructured":"Esposito. 2013:174."}],"container-title":["Medical Humanities"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/syndication.highwire.org\/content\/doi\/10.1136\/medhum-2016-010917","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,24]],"date-time":"2025-09-24T18:30:32Z","timestamp":1758738632000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/mh.bmj.com\/lookup\/doi\/10.1136\/medhum-2016-010917"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2016,10,3]]},"references-count":50,"journal-issue":{"issue":"4","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2016,11,24]]},"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2016,12]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1136\/medhum-2016-010917"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1136\/medhum-2016-010917","relation":{},"ISSN":["1468-215X","1473-4265"],"issn-type":[{"type":"print","value":"1468-215X"},{"type":"electronic","value":"1473-4265"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2016,10,3]]}}}