Organ trafficking is an illegal means of meeting the shortage of transplants. The activity flourishes for several interacting reasons, such as medical needs, poverty and criminality. Other factors are fundamental conceptual structures such as the dream of the regenerative body as well as the view of the body as an object of utility and an object of value. The article aims to go behind the normative discussions that usually surround organ trafficking. Why this is happening, and what the societal consequences are, is examined through ethnographic fieldwork. The focus is on the shadow economies that govern existence and in which people, goods, weapons, money, bodies, etc. constitute components of the global market. © SAGE Publications 2010.

shadow economy Identity Organ trafficking Ethnography

cultural anthropology World Health Moldova living donor Living Donors economics Israel health care policy human ethics Tissue and Organ Procurement Commerce health transplantation Humans commercial phenomena Article organization and management legal aspect government regulation Health Policy Anthropology, Cultural Transplants crime