Kaufman S R
Am Anthropol. 2000 Mar;102(1):69-83. doi: 10.1525/aa.2000.102.1.69.
In this paper I address one site of technological development and cultural production, the permanent or persistent comatose condition and the institutions and practices that enable this life form to exist. As with other medical sites of ambiguity and change under recent scrutiny by anthropologists, the locations in which comatose bodies thrive are those in which the routinization of technology use in the clinic and a legitimating social and economic context come together to permit and create a further remapping of the notions of "life" and "person." I explore the new forms of knowledge, practice, and the body that are created at this site and how they are negotiated, and I discuss how the shifting understanding of "culture" and "nature" both have an impact on and are informed by American quandaries about approaching death. I argue that beings who are neither fully alive, biologically dead, nor "naturally" self-regulating, yet who are sustained by modern medical practice, destabilize the existing social order in ways that are different from other hybrid forms.
在本文中，我探讨了一个技术发展与文化生产的领域，即永久性或持续性昏迷状态以及使这种生命形式得以存在的机构和实践。与人类学家近期审视的其他充满模糊性和变化的医学领域一样，昏迷者得以存续的场所，是诊所中技术使用的常规化与合理的社会经济背景相结合，从而允许并促成对“生命”和“人”的概念进行进一步重新界定的地方。我探究了在此领域所产生的知识、实践和身体的新形式，以及它们是如何被协商的，并且我讨论了“文化”和“自然”观念的转变如何既影响美国在面对死亡时的困境，又受到这些困境的影响。我认为，那些既非完全活着、生物学上已死亡，也非“自然”自我调节，但却由现代医疗实践维持生命的存在，以不同于其他混合形式的方式破坏了现有的社会秩序。
