Blood in the Time of the Civic

This chapter focuses on blood in the time of the civic—that is, blood that is donated voluntarily as a dutiful contribution to civic life, that in turn ensures the continued efficacy and productivity of transfusion medicine. These voluntary donations take place according to a seemingly simple biological time map: the biological time of cellular production determines the biomedically mandated three-month gap between donations. The time regime of the repeated voluntary donation emerges from and is mapped upon the lifetime of blood cells. This is in contrast to apparently less civic-minded blood donation modes: the potentially dangerous commercial transaction of paid blood donation and the one-time mode of “replacement” donation, performed in order to release blood for the benefit of one's immediate family member in need of transfusion. As this chapter shows, these modes of donation are characterized by different temporalities. A routine of dutiful repetitive bloodshed structures voluntary blood donation's time of the civic.

Bloodscape of Difference

This chapter traces a political hematology in which the “p” in “politics” figures in both the upper and lower cases. In the domain of overt big-P politics (which is to say in situations defined by their own actors as belonging to the domain of the political), contestations take place through the use of extracted blood. Blood flows in acts of violence or national solidarity, into syringes, art brushes, and pens, all in order to compel actions and persuade imaginations. Here, this chapter's area of inquiry is that of hematology as a sort of political style: how and why publicly enacted blood extractions—principally political rallies, memorials, protests in the form of petitions or paintings in blood—became such a noteworthy form of political enunciation in India. Complementing this approach is a counterpart focus on less overt, small-P politics—the domain of contestations about blood and its use. Exploration of this domain takes us into hospitals, blood banks, and campaigns aimed at getting people to understand and use the substance “correctly.” What are contested here are definitions, economies, and practices of blood, both inside and outside human bodies.