%0 Journal Article
%T Blood¡¯s ontologies
%A Lesley Hustinx
%A Michiel P. M. M. De Krom
%A Nathan Wittock
%J Organization
%@ 1461-7323
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/1350508418808234
%X Since British sociologist Titmuss authoritatively conceived blood donation as an altruistic ¡®gift relationship¡¯, blood establishments have adopted blood¡¯s highly symbolic status as a core professional belief. However, important developments since the 1970s have resulted in blood¡¯s bio-objectification, making blood a renewed object of concern. Because different versions of this bio-object are simultaneously present and interfere with one another, we ask how the organization renders this multiplicity workable? Studying how ontological versions are enacted in a specific blood establishment and how the organizational model of a blood establishment functions as a mode of coordination, we develop a praxiographic appreciation of blood in the context of a specific Belgian blood establishment. We show how the organizational mode of coordination allocates versions of blood in specific departments along functional and chronological dimensions. Blood remains the object of a gift relationship but is accompanied by blood¡¯s enactment and representation as the object of suspicion, management, research/biology, and a blood economy. Furthermore, the organizational mode of coordination also allocates personalized and depersonalized enactments according to the level of contact with the donor population. This reflects a third dimension: (de)personalization of blood. Whereas the organizational mode of coordination is successful in rendering blood¡¯s multiplicity workable, at times, it causes suboptimal practices. Moreover, we showed how sometimes a focus on intra-departmental modes of coordination is necessary to understand how blood¡¯s multiplicity complicates the practices of the blood establishment
%K Blood-supply management
%K enactment
%K modes of coordination
%K multiplicity
%K organization
%K praxiography
%K renewed object of concern
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1350508418808234