The Ethical Public: Biomoral Circulation in Contemporary India

CASI Seminar
Lawrence Cohen
Professor of Anthropology and South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of California-Berkeley
South Asia Reading Room, Room 551 Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania

The current “kidney racket” scandal in the Delhi satellite city of Gurgaon--in which accusations that a man posing as a transplant surgeon ran a kidney transplant clinic for eight years, serving an international clientele and not only buying kidneys from poor sellers but extorting them--raises immediate questions about the structure of medical regulation and the epidemiology, forensics, and ethics of the kidney trade. To answer such questions, a class of experts (including Cohen) has proliferated to study and adjudicate these scandals and the everyday practices they suspend.

This talk will begin with an anatomy of the Gurgaon racket, and then turn to a series of concepts--the ‘bioavailability’ of marginal populations, the ‘operation’ as a dominant form of time under decolonization, and the 'nexus' as the persistent narrative of the limit to both civil society and the state--to help locate the event.

The second part of the talk takes the problem of publicity--of the iteration of ethical scandal and the call for global humanitarian expertise--as central to our ability to understand the time of kidney scandal.  An argument is made for ‘ethical publics.’  By ethical public, the talk calls attention to the phenomenon that publics increasingly come to know themselves in the condition of their address as ethical.

For updated information visit http://www.southasiacenter.upenn.edu/

The Nand & Jeet Khemka Distinguished Lecture Series is an endowed public program of the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI). Launched in the 2007-08 academic year, and made possible through the generous support of the Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation, the series brings renowned India specialists to the Penn community and serves as a critical forum for analyzing and understanding the complex economic, political, social, and cultural changes that the world’s largest democracy is experiencing, as well as the challenges that lie ahead.
The Saluja Global Fellows Program has been made possible by the generous gift from Vishal Saluja ENG’89 W’89. CASI was excited to launch the program during the 2022–23 academic year, coinciding with the Center’s 30th Anniversary. This new program enables CASI to invite eminent leaders and rising experts on contemporary India preferably from the fields of media, culture, law, and contemporary history to be in residence for one to two weeks at CASI.