Selling under stigma: The relational gender dynamics of becoming biolaborers in China

Abstract

Existing studies have examined how economic and cultural factors affect individuals selling organs and human tissues. But how social interactions and community relationships shape individuals' decisions and experiences has received much less attention. This research focuses on the intersection between economic disparities and gendered lineage structures to explain why and how people engage in bodily commodification. Drawing on oral history interviews with 32 former plasma sellers in central rural China, I find that villagers entered collection stations in two ways: 1) individual recruitment through which migrant men and married women on the margin of local lineage hierarchies in richer villages sold plasma as individuals and 2) familial recruitment through which multiple men of dominant lineage groups in poorer villages sold plasma in groups. While individual sellers struggled with self-blame and shame, familial sellers were shielded from gendered stigma as their communities adapted lineage rules to align plasma sale with masculinity. The results highlight the utility of a relational framework of gender in highlighting commodification as a dynamic social process shaped by participants’ power locations in relation to not only each other but also the local patriarchal order.