Altruism, solidarity and affect in live kidney donation and breastmilk sharing

Social scientists have recently diverged from mainstream bioethical discussion on the topic of the medical use of human biological materials for therapeutic, reproductive and research purposes. Rather than justifying the donation and provision of biological materials solely in terms of alleviating physical, psychological and social suffering, saving or enhancing life, and advancing biomedical knowledge, this work looks beyond humanist bioethics to take a social justice approach to questions of the life sciences. In this article, I draw insight from these accounts to propose an approach to the sociology of live kidney and breastmilk donation that is situated at the interface of the new sociology of morality and affect studies. To do so, I examine the moral economy of tissue provision with respect to its organisation around the discourse of altruism and the gift. I then turn to recent work on tissue economies, which are in the business of creating and producing biovalue, to discuss the manipulation of affect and the entanglement of new forms of bio-intimacy in the production and reproduction of somatic life. The aim of the article was to contribute to the study of the sociology of donation as a substantive field of specialisation within sociology.