Academic Journal
Mimetic violence and wartime organ donation between Israeli Jews and Palestinians.
| Τίτλος: | Mimetic violence and wartime organ donation between Israeli Jews and Palestinians. |
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| Συγγραφείς: | Dagan DN; The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel. Electronic address: netanel.dagan@mail.huji.ac.il., Oreg DA; The Louis and Gabi Weisfeld School of Social Work, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel. Electronic address: ayelet.oreg@biu.ac.il. |
| Πηγή: | Social science & medicine (1982) [Soc Sci Med] 2026 Jul; Vol. 401, pp. 119344. Date of Electronic Publication: 2026 Apr 29. |
| Τύπος έκδοσης: | Journal Article |
| Γλώσσα: | English |
| Στοιχεία περιοδικού: | Publisher: Pergamon Country of Publication: England NLM ID: 8303205 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1873-5347 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 02779536 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Soc Sci Med Subsets: MEDLINE |
| Imprint Name(s): | Original Publication: Oxford ; New York : Pergamon, c1982- |
| Ιατρικοί όροι (MeSH): | Arabs*/psychology , Arabs*/statistics & numerical data , Tissue and Organ Procurement*/ethics , Tissue and Organ Procurement*/methods , Jews*/psychology , Jews*/statistics & numerical data , Violence*/psychology, Humans ; Israel ; Female ; Male ; Warfare ; Anthropology, Cultural ; Adult |
| Περίληψη: | This paper develops a theoretical framework for understanding how wartime organ donation can both interrupt and reinforce cycles of mimetic violence. Drawing on René Girard's mimetic theory, we analyze ethnographic and interview-based material collected between August 2021 and October 2022 from three cases of cross-community organ donation between Israeli Jews and Palestinians during armed conflict, examining how donor families and recipients frame bodily giving as an ethical, relational, and symbolic practice. The findings reveal a dual dynamic. Organ donation functions simultaneously as a boundary-spanning mechanism, introducing a counter-mimetic dynamic that challenges entrenched hostility by transforming the injured body into a site of moral repair and promoting restraint, renunciation, and recognition of shared vulnerability, and as a boundary-making mechanism, perceived as betrayal of the in-group or as reproducing existing power hierarchies. This contribution advances scholarship at the intersection of social science and health by demonstrating how medicalized exchanges of bodily material engage with political conflict and sacrificial logic, and suggests that acts of biomedical care can serve as mechanisms of both social interruption and social reinforcement during war. (Copyright © 2026 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.) |
| Competing Interests: | Declaration of competing interests The authors declare no competing interests. |
| Contributed Indexing: | Keywords: Organ donation; Political conflict; René Girard's mimetic theory; Sacrifice; Scapegoat |
| Entry Date(s): | Date Created: 20260505 Date Completed: 20260716 Latest Revision: 20260720 |
| Update Code: | 20260721 |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.socscimed.2026.119344 |
| PMID: | 42085798 |
| Βάση Δεδομένων: | MEDLINE |
| ISSN: | 1873-5347 |
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| DOI: | 10.1016/j.socscimed.2026.119344 |