文章基本信息

标题：Friends, partners, and orphans
本地全文：下载
作者：Jenna Grant
期刊名称：Medicine Anthropology Theory
电子版ISSN：2405-691X
出版年度：2018
卷号：5
期号：2
DOI：10.17157/mat.5.2.533
语种：English
出版社：University of Edinburgh Library
摘要：The essay juxtaposes three moments of medical infrastructure and technology aid in Phnom Penh, Cambodia: 1960, 2010, and 2005. The operative terms of these moments are relationship terms: ‘friendship’, ‘partnership’, and ‘orphan’. The 1960 gift of a hospital, equipment, and training made a friend, and reciprocity involved political alignment at the level of the nation-state. The 2010 gift of equipment and training made a partner, and reciprocity involved brand alignment spread across diverse government ministries, public hospitals, private universities, and private businesses. Focusing on the materiality of technology and infrastructure gifts brings us to the orphan. The orphan is a gift that turns toxic. Its toxicity is health-threatening if there is no infrastructure to secure it. The elaborate partnerships required to identify and secure orphan sources of radiation show how gifts of medical technology and infrastructure exist beyond their immediate utility to humans. What technology of partnership will the medical physicist of 2050 unearth, and what ethic of relationality will come to care for, repair, and secure it?