Local Virtue and Global Vision: The Practice of Eye donation in contemporary Sri Lanka

Simpson, R.

doi:10.17157/mat.4.4.316

Local Virtue and Global Vision: The Practice of Eye donation in contemporary Sri Lanka

Simpson, R.

Authors

Professor Bob Simpson robert.simpson@durham.ac.uk
Emeritus Professor

Abstract

A death radically rearranges kinship, debt, obligation, and responsibility, and it also triggers prescribed routines for mourning and material disposal of the corpse. It is into this complex and fraught unfolding of events that the rhetorics of corporeal charity must be introduced and acted upon. In this article, I describe practices and practicalities of cornea donation in Sri Lanka in relation to ideas about merit and the nation state. In contrast with discourses about ‘shortages’, corneas, which are often elsewhere a particularly difficult tissue to elicit because of their links to the eye, appearance, identity, and inner consciousness (Hayward and Madill 2003), are in Sri Lanka not in short supply. Nor is religion an impediment to donation but rather, the day-to-day practice of Sinhala Buddhists provides an extremely compelling affective, moral, and political justification when it comes to pledging to donate. The article illustrates how and why this is the case.

Citation

Simpson, R. (2017). Local Virtue and Global Vision: The Practice of Eye donation in contemporary Sri Lanka. Medicine Anthropology Theory, 4(4), 150-170. https://doi.org/10.17157/mat.4.4.316

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Sep 7, 2016
Online Publication Date	Oct 23, 2017
Publication Date	Oct 23, 2017
Deposit Date	Dec 7, 2016
Publicly Available Date	Dec 8, 2016
Journal	Medicine Anthropology Theory
Print ISSN	2405-691X
Publisher	Edinburgh University Library
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	4
Issue	4
Pages	150-170
DOI	https://doi.org/10.17157/mat.4.4.316
Publisher URL	http://www.medanthrotheory.org/index.php/mat/issue/view/355