Renee C. Fox – författare

Spare Parts centres on the developments that have occurred in the field of organ transplantation during the 1980s and early 1990s, and on the rise and fall of the Jarvik-7 artificial heart in that period. It is vividly written in a narrative ethnographic style. The interconnected stories of organ transplantation and the artificial heart are recounted in an interpretive framework that attributes their most enduring significance to the triple themes of uncertainty, gift exchange, and the allocation of scarce material and non-material resources, and to the way that they open questions of life and death, identity and solidarity.

Based on original primary and extensive secondary source materials, the book views bioethics as a complex phenomenon that is not only related to advances in modern biology, medicine, and biotechnology, but also to the fundamental values and beliefs and larger moral and existential questions which American society has been collectively grappling in its courts, legislatures, and media. Although they center their analysis on U.S. bioethics, the authors also trace the field's international spread, including case studies of bioethics in France and Pakistan - two of the many societies in which it has developed. While recognizing the intellectual, moral and sociological importance of American bioethics, they are critical of certain of its characteristics, and concerned about their implications-especially the problems of thinking socially, culturally, and internationally that have existed since bioethics' inception; the field's "tenuous interdisciplinarity"; and the extent to which the "culture wars" on the larger American scene have recently penetrated it.

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

"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, 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.

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.

"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 grand and unusual book, whose meaning extends far beyond the borders of Belgium, is the product of thirty-five years of cultural investigation of that small European country. When Renée Fox first traveled to Brussels in 1959 to study the Belgian institutions of medical research, she scarcely realized how strongly the Belgian way of life would take hold of her. Here she draws upon her extraordinary knowledge of and research in the country to describe the "house" of Belgium and its many "houses"–institutional and personal, literal and metaphoric. Ms. Fox moves across the geographical and social terrain of the country, using her autobiography as a wedge to explore the ways of fife of the châteaux 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. At bottom a study of social institutions and social processes, the book is much more than that: a collective portrait of life in a small land, with larger human and social significance.

"Explorations of a Mind-Traveling Sociologist" is a book of thematically interconnected ethnographic essays by the internationally esteemed sociologist Renée C. Fox, who employs a participant observer outlook to provide unique insight on such enduring—and pressing—issues as the lived experiences of physicians and patients, including patients who are physically challenged, elderly, mortally ill or beyond the reach of medical care; the origins and consequences of epidemic outbreaks of old and new plague-like infectious diseases that occur and recur, despite the impressive advances of medicine; the concomitants and challenges of aging; the wellsprings, dynamics and significance of medical humanitarian action; engagement with a “beyond borders” world view; the occurrence of national and international events of major moral as well as political and legal import and repercussions; and the meaning and meaningfulness of teaching, exploring, questing and writing. Latently associated with these themes are the author’s social values and social conscience. Composing these essays from a participant observer outlook heightens and enriches the author’s observations over the course of her daily life, enabling her to engage in “mind travel” to places and people she has intimately known in the past and to places she has yearningly hoped to visit but never has.

"Explorations of a Mind-Traveling Sociologist" is a book of thematically interconnected ethnographic essays by the internationally esteemed sociologist Renée C. Fox, who employs a participant observer outlook to provide unique insight on such enduring—and pressing—issues as the lived experiences of physicians and patients, including patients who are physically challenged, elderly, mortally ill or beyond the reach of medical care; the origins and consequences of epidemic outbreaks of old and new plague-like infectious diseases that occur and recur, despite the impressive advances of medicine; the concomitants and challenges of aging; the wellsprings, dynamics and significance of medical humanitarian action; engagement with a “beyond borders” world view; the occurrence of national and international events of major moral as well as political and legal import and repercussions; and the meaning and meaningfulness of teaching, exploring, questing and writing. Latently associated with these themes are the author’s social values and social conscience. Composing these essays from a participant observer outlook heightens and enriches the author’s observations over the course of her daily life, enabling her to engage in “mind travel” to places and people she has intimately known in the past and to places she has yearningly hoped to visit but never has.