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Ethics of transference care: Navigating personhood, data, and the dead in corneal donation

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  • Tammi, Ronja

Abstract

This article examines how ethics is enacted in everyday corneal donation practices in a Finnish eye bank, focusing on the socio-technical and affective work of tissue coordinators. Drawing on two months of ethnographic fieldwork in 2024 at a Finnish university hospital eye bank, including participant observation and interviews, I introduce the concept of ethics of transference care to describe how ethical practices unfold across transition between life and death, data and bodies, and objectification and personhood. Building on scholarship on emotional labour, ethical labour, and ontological multiplicity, the analysis shows how coordinators navigate ethical ambiguity through repertoire switching and relational practices. By foregrounding the role of patient data and embodied encounters with the dead, the article advances practice-based understandings of ethics beyond formal ethical guidelines and protocols.

Suggested Citation

  • Tammi, Ronja, 2026. "Ethics of transference care: Navigating personhood, data, and the dead in corneal donation," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 402(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:402:y:2026:i:c:s0277953626004028
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2026.119326
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