Observing Bioethics examines the history of bioethics as a discipline related not only to modern biology, medicine, and biotechnology, but also to the core values and beliefs of American society and its courts, legislatures, and media. The book is written from the perspective of two social scientists--a sociologist of medicine(Renee C. Fox) and a historian of medicine (Judith P. Swazey)--who have participated in bioethics since the emergence of this multidisciplinary field more than 30 years ago.
Fox and Swazey draw on first-hand observations and experiences in a variety of American bioethical settings; face-to-face interviews with first- and second-generation figures in the genesis and early unfolding of bioethics; a detailed examination of the theatrical media coverage of what was considered to be a banner event in the annals of bioethics (the creation and birth of the cloned sheep, Dolly); case studies of how bioethics has internationally developed; and a large corpus of primary documents and secondary source materials.
While recognizing the intellectual, moral, and sociological importance of American bioethics, Fox and Swazey are critical of its characteristics. Foremost among these are what they identify as the problems of thinking socially, culturally, and internationally in American bioethics; the 'tenuous interdisciplinarity' of the field; and the troubling extent to which the 'culture wars' have penetrated bioethics.
This book will appeal to a wide range of doctors, scientists, and academics who are involved in the history and sociology of bioethics.

"This is a brilliant work of lasting value to both sociology and anthropology by a person combining the talent of keen observer with the highest level of theoretical sophistication. . . a major contribution to our understanding of the nature and structure of a significant social situation."--David M. Schneider, The University of Chicago.

Spare Parts examines major developments in the field of organ replacement that occurred in the United States over the course of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. It focuses upon significant medical and social changes in the transplantation of human organs and on the development and clinical testing of the Jarvik-7 artificial heart, with special emphasis on how these biomedical events were related to the political, economic, and social climate of American society. Part I examines the important biomedical advances and events in organ transplantation and their social and cultural concomitants. In Part II, the focus shifts to the story of the rise and fall of the Jarvik-7 artificial heart in the United States, its relation to American social institutions and cultural patterns, and its bearing on social control issues associated with therapeutic innovation and the patient-oriented clinical research it entails. Part III is a personal conclusion, which explains why the authors left the field of organ transplantation after so many years. Spare Parts is written in a narrative, ethnographic style, with thickly descriptive, verbatim, and atmospheric detail. The primary data it is based upon includes qualitative materials, collected via participant observation, interviews in a variety of medical milieu, and content analysis of medical journals, newspapers, and magazine articles, and a number of television transcripts. The new introduction provides an overview of some of the recent developments in transplantation and also underscores how tenacious many of the patterns associated with organ replacement have been. Spare Parts should be read by all medical professionals, sociologists, and historians.

Until recent years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation enjoyed an exalted reputation as America's premier crime-fighting organization. However, it is now common knowledge that the FBI and its long-time director, J. Edgar Hoover, were responsible for the creation of a massive internal security apparatus that undermined the very principles of freedom and democracy they were sworn to protect. While no one was above suspicion, Hoover appears to have held a special disdain for sociologists and placed many of the profession's most prominent figures under surveillance. In Stalking Sociologists, Mike Forrest Keen offers a detailed account of the FBI's investigations within the context of an overview of the history of American sociology. This ground-breaking analysis history uses documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Keen argues that Hoover and the FBI marginalized sociologists such as W. E. B. Du Bois and C. Wright Mills, tried to suppress the development of a Marxist tradition in American sociology, and likely pushed the mainstream of the discipline away from a critique of American society and towards a more quantitative and scientific direction. He documents thousands of man-hours and millions of dollars dedicated to this project. Faculty members of various departments of sociology were recruited to inform on the activities of their colleagues and the American Sociological Association was a target of FBI surveillance. Keen turns sociology back upon the FBI, using the writings and ideas of the very sociologists Hoover investigated to examine and explain the excesses of the Bureau and its boss. The result is a significant contribution to the collective memory of American society as well as the accurate history of the sociological discipline. "This ground-breaking book documents in meticulous detail decades of harassment and surveillance of major American sociologists by the FBI. The misuse of power...will outrage all Americans and raise significant professional issues within the social sciences."--Mary Jo Deegan, professor of sociology, University of Nebraska

In the Field, by Renee C. Fox, is a narrative account of the author's life as a sociologist. It is not a memoir in the conventional sense; rather, it is an ethnographic autobiography. Drawing on a vast reservoir of notes and documents that chronicle the span of her career, this work also focuses on the places Fox's field research has carried her. Propelled by a conviction to move beyond the boundaries of herself and of her native land, Fox has done first-hand research in Europe, Central Africa, and China, as well as in the United States. The majority of her research has centered on health, illness, and medicine. Other recurrent themes that pervade her work include training for uncertainty; the allocation of scarce resources; the relationship between self and others; detachment and concern; the particular and the universal; the harm that can result from intended good; and the questions posed by illness and accident, pain and suffering, and death. It is Fox's commitment as a teacher and mentor of generations of students that lies at the heart of this book. This volume will inspire new generations of social researchers.

Spare Parts examines major developments in the field of organ replacement that occurred in the United States over the course of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. It focuses upon significant medical and social changes in the transplantation of human organs and on the development and clinical testing of the Jarvik-7 artificial heart, with special emphasis on how these biomedical events were related to the political, economic, and social climate of American society.

Part I examines the important biomedical advances and events in organ transplantation and their social and cultural concomitants. In Part II, the focus shifts to the story of the rise and fall of the Jarvik-7 artificial heart in the United States, its relation to American social institutions and cultural patterns, and its bearing on social control issues associated with therapeutic innovation and the patient-oriented clinical research it entails. Part III is a personal conclusion, which explains why the authors left the field of organ transplantation after so many years.

Spare Parts is written in a narrative, ethnographic style, with thickly descriptive, verbatim, and atmospheric detail. The primary data it is based upon includes qualitative materials, collected via participant observation, interviews in a variety of medical milieu, and content analysis of medical journals, newspapers, and magazine articles, and a number of television transcripts. The new introduction provides an overview of some of the recent developments in transplantation and also underscores how tenacious many of the patterns associated with organ replacement have been. Spare Parts should be read by all medical professionals, sociologists, and historians.

In the Field: A Sociologist's Journey, by Renee C. Fox, is a narrative account of her life as a sociologist. It is not a memoir in the conventional sense of the term. Rather, it is an ethnographic autobiography that draws on the vast amount of notes and documents that chronicle the span of her career and the places to which her perpetual field research has carried her.

Fox's accounts of the firsthand research that she has conducted include studies of an "experiment perilous" hospital community formed by patients and physicians on a metabolic research ward; the professional education and socialization of medical students; social, cultural, and historical factors affecting medical research and research careers in a European society; organ transplantation, dialysis, and the development and implantation of an artificial heart; bioethics as a sociological phenomenon; and of the moral dilemmas associated with their medical humanitarian and human rights witnessing and advocacy action that Doctors Without Borders encounters.

Integrating her research and this book are the recurrent themes that infuse her work-- training for uncertainty; the allocation of scarce material and non-material resources; the relationship between self and others, the individual and the community, detachment and concern, and the particular and the universal; the "double effects" of human action--especially the harm that can result from intended good; and the questions of meaning posed by illness and accident, pain and suffering, and by death. It is Fox's commitment as a teacher and mentor of generations of students, in the United States and wherever she has traveled, with whom she has shared the experiences and lessons of her life "in the field," that lies at the heart of this book. This volume will inspire new generations of social researchers.

When Renee Fox first traveled to Brussels in 1959 to study the Belgian institutions of medical research, she scarcely realized how strongly Belgium's way of life would take hold of her. Fascinated by the culture and its people, she began thirty-five years of investigation of that small European country. Moving across Belgium's geography and society, Ms. Fox uses her autobiography as a wedge to explore the ways of life of the chateaux and their inhabitants. Blending social and cultural analysis with ethnography, contemporary history, interviews, and her personal reflections, she succeeds in conveying the values, images, atmosphere, and world-view of a whole European society since World War II. Her encounters are with important powers in government and science, with great playwrights, with families of the middle class as well as those of wealth and stature, and with the routinized but socially revealing banks, railroads, and postal systems of Belgium. Her experiences in the African country of Zaire (formerly the Congo), at a time when it was pulling away from its status as a Belgian colony, make an insightful report on this moment of change.

Until recent years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation enjoyed an exalted reputation as America's premier crime-fighting organization. However, it is now common knowledge that the FBI and its long-time director, J. Edgar Hoover, were responsible for the creation of a massive internal security apparatus that undermined the very principles of freedom and democracy they were sworn to protect. While no one was above suspicion, Hoover appears to have held a special disdain for sociologists and placed many of the profession's most prominent figures under surveillance. In "Stalking Sociologists," Mike Forrest Keen offers a detailed account of the FBI's investigations within the context of an overview of the history of American sociology.
This ground-breaking analysis history uses documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Keen argues that Hoover and the FBI marginalized sociologists such as W. E. B. Du Bois and C. Wright Mills, tried to suppress the development of a Marxist tradition in American sociology, and likely pushed the mainstream of the discipline away from a critique of American society and towards a more quantitative and scientific direction. He documents thousands of man-hours and millions of dollars dedicated to this project. Faculty members of various departments of sociology were recruited to inform on the activities of their colleagues and the American Sociological Association was a target of FBI surveillance. Keen turns sociology back upon the FBI, using the writings and ideas of the very sociologists Hoover investigated to examine and explain the excesses of the Bureau and its boss. The result is a significant contribution to the collective memory of American society as well as the accurate history of the sociological discipline.
"This ground-breaking book documents in meticulous detail decades of harassment and surveillance of major American sociologists by the FBI. The misuse of power...will outrage all Americans and raise significant professional issues within the social sciences."--Mary Jo Deegan, professor of sociology, University of Nebraska
Mike Forrest Keen is professor in the department of sociology at Indiana University South Bend. His previous work includes numerous scholarly articles and "Eastern Europe in Transformation: The Impact on Sociology," edited with Janusz L. Mucha.

The developments that have occurred in the field of organ transplantation during the 1980s and early 1990s, and the simultaneous rise and fall of the Jarvik-7 artificial heart are the subject of this vividly written and absorbing new volume. In Spare Parts, fascinating, interconnected stories of organ transplantation and the artificial heart are recounted in an interpretive framework that explores the vision of the "replaceable body." Themes of uncertainty, gift exchange, and the allocation of scarce material and non-material resources underscore a discussion that openly examines the escalating ardor about the goodness of repairing and remaking people with transplanted organs. Likewise, the stories open questions of life and death, identity, and solidarity. This important book offers insights into the symbolic and anthropomorphic meanings associated with the human body and its organs, and into the ways that medical professionals come to terms with the concomitant aspects of transferring vital body parts. Both artificial and donor organs, as well as the process of transplantation, are the subject of a thoughtful discussion which touches on the medical myths and rituals that they generate. Chronologically, Spare Parts begins where the authors' previous book, The Courage to Fail, leaves off. More than a sequel, however, this work reflects their increasingly troubled and critical reactions to the expansion of organ replacement. Likely to be controversial, this book is must reading for bioethicists, medical sociologists and anthropologists, health-care lawyers, planners and administrators, nurses and physicians, medical journalists and science writers, and concerned lay readers.

"This is a brilliant work of lasting value to both sociology and anthropology by a person combining the talent of keen observer with the highest level of theoretical sophistication. . . a major contribution to our understanding of the nature and structure of a significant social situation."

--David M. Schneider, The University of Chicago

This study of Medecins Sans Frontieres / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) casts new light on the organization's founding principles, distinctive culture, and inner struggles to realize more fully its "without borders" transnational vision. Pioneering medical sociologist Renee C. Fox spent nearly twenty years conducting extensive ethnographic research within MSF, a private international medical humanitarian organization that was created in 1971 and awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1999. With unprecedented access, Fox attended MSF meetings and observed doctors and other workers in the field. She interviewed MSF members and participants and analyzed the content of such documents as communications between MSF staff members within the offices of its various headquarters, communications between headquarters and the field, and transcripts of internal group discussions and meetings. Fox weaves these threads of information into a rich tapestry of the MSF experience that reveals the dual perspectives of an insider and an observer. The book begins with moving, detailed accounts from the blogs of women and men working for MSF in the field. From there, Fox chronicles the organization's early history and development, paying special attention to its struggles during the first decades of its existence to clarify and implement its principles. The core of the book is centered on her observations in the field of MSF's efforts to combat a rampant epidemic of HIV/AIDS in postapartheid South Africa and the organization's response to two challenges in postsocialist Russia: an enormous surge in homelessness on the streets of Moscow and a massive epidemic of tuberculosis in the penal colonies of Siberia. Fox's accounts of these crises exemplify MSF's struggles to provide for thousands of people in need when both the populations and the aid workers are in danger. Enriched by vivid photographs of MSF operations and by ironic, self-critical cartoons drawn by a member of the Communications Department of MSF France, Doctors Without Borders highlights the bold mission of the renowned international humanitarian organization even as it demonstrates the intrinsic dilemmas of humanitarian action.