Blood Donation (Anthropology)

In this article we examine blood as a medium and metaphor for Hindutva’s political transactions. Specifically, we identify three ways in which blood operates in Hindutva thought and practice. First, it serves to create a spatial geographic whole – an original Hindu nation whose inhabitants share the same blood. Second, blood serves to mediate between the violent and non-violent aspects of Hindu nationalism, authorizing and reconciling present acts of violence with a supposed Hindu capacity for heroic restraint. And third, blood serves to establish a temporal continuum between a Hindutva past, present and future, writing Hindu nationalist thought and action backwards into Indian history, and forwards to threaten future bloodshed against non-adherents. In these three ways, Hindutva imaginations and extractions of blood work through each other. In present-day India, these three political manifestations of blood – as a marker of exclusion, as mediating non-violence, and as premonitory threat – have all appeared in the Citizenship Amendment Act controversy and around the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. As blood overflows through time and space, it threatens to erase difference and legitimize violence while further extending the ideology’s reach.

Background: One of the biggest challenges in blood donation particularly in Nigeria is the
recruitment and retention of voluntary non-remunerated, low cost blood donors.
Aims: The aim of this study is to determine the effect of repeated blood donations on iron stores
and the prevalence of iron deficiency anaemia among the male blood donors in the Enugu State,
Nigeria.
Original Research Article
Ositadinma et al.; BJMMR, 5(6): 788-793, 2015; Article no.BJMMR.2015.083
789
Study Design: In this case-control study, two hundred and twenty three randomly selected male
blood donors, were grouped into six categories according to the number of units of blood donated in
one year, two years, three years and the last group were on their 4th year.
Place and Duration of Study: Haematology and blood bank laboratory unit, Enugu State
University of Science and Technology Teaching Hospital, Enugu, Enugu State, Nigeria: April 2012
to December 2012.
Methodology: Prior to blood donation, blood samples of 202 directed/regular male blood donors
and twenty one apparently healthy men with no previous history of blood donation (aged 18-
40years) were collected. Donors were grouped into 0, ≤ 3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12 and > 13 categories
based on the number of units of blood donated.
Results: Iron depletion was seen in 1.3% in group 2 (1-3 times) and also in 13.3% of group 4 (7-9
times), iron deficiency was present in 4.4% of group 3 (4-6 times) and in 20% of group 6 (13-15
times) and iron deficiency anaemia was discovered in 4.4% of group 3 (4-6 times). Blood donors
with more than seven times instances of blood donation (P<0.05) showed a significant relationship
between iron depletion and iron deficiency.
Conclusion: This study showed that iron deficiency anaemia in blood donors can occur as a result
of increase in number of units of blood donated and also based on iron status of individual at time
of donation. Based on findings of this study ferritin test should be done on all male blood donors in
Enugu before donating any unit of blood to find out the appropriate time to start iron supplement.

En este trabajo se analiza la donación de sangre desde la perspectiva teórica del CS, como un sistema de recolección de sangre hospitalario de seguridad social. El trabajo explora los alcances de utilizar la etnografía organizacional en el estudio de temas relacionados con la salud, como lo es la donación de sangre. Se sugiere que la intervención de la etnografía en disciplinas ajenas a la antropología permite ampliar el panorama del investigador hacia eventos poco estudiados bajo este enfoque, como es la donación de sangre.

THE  REPRESENTATION OF THE SUBSTANCES OF THE BELARUSIANS AND THEIR ROLE IN THE TRADITIONAL WITHCRAFT AND HEALING: BLOOD, SPIRIT, SOUL, POWER, KNOWLEDGE, CHARMS, EVIL EYE.
We studied traditional Belarusian representation of such substances as blood, spirit, soul, power, knowledge, charms, evil eye. Many older  Belarusians who live in the villages, believe that these substances have supernatural properties and found in humans, animals, supernatural beings, things. People, other creatures, can transmit these substances, with the result that the state of the human body varies in a supernatural way: it can be a healthy patient, acquire supernatural properties.
We have studied the representations of substance and traditional medicine as a complex complex system based on the combination of methods of the theory of systems and cognitive sciences. We conducted fieldwork in Belarusian villages, interviewed informants about the substances of organisms, including metaphysical supernatural concepts, medical rituals performed by them, as well as medical ritual texts. In several cases we carried out the participant observation of such rituals.
People who have supernatural properties of the substances the body, are the social role of a specialist having special knowledge — a wizard, witches, sorcerers, healer. Social relationships that arise as a result of this belief, have the character of rituals that aim to harm or treatment. Thus formed social system in which there are data exchanges information about the state of organisms and their procedures change states through rituals. Data management is done through the submission of the substance that forms the negative and positive feedback — respectively, aimed at improving or deteriorating conditions of the body, or the formation of new organisms. In accordance with the ideas of people make decisions about social connections and actions that have a ritual character.
Coordination in the aspect of self-organization of the system is dynamic — the emergence of experts  and action by experts is called faith in the substance, and in turn they are spreading as a result of its activities medicinal rituals, folklore texts about the substance that forms a positive feedback loop in changing the state of the system - increasing the number of knowledge and experts. Coordination in the control aspect is carried out at the level of individuals and experts through exchanges of data on the state of organisms and substances, with the formation of positive and negative feedback between people, experts in sacred knowledge, supernatural beings, natural units. The purpose of this system is the body's deterioration or improvement of conditions or the formation of new organisms.
У статті досліджуються традиційні уявлення про наступні субстанції: «кров», «дух», «душа», «чари», «знання», «погляд», «сила». Багато білорусів старшого віку, які живуть в селах, вірять, що ці субстанції мають надприродні властивості і можуть міститися в людях, тварин, надприродних істот, речах. Люди і інші істоти, можуть передавати ці субстанції, в результаті чого стан організму людини змінюється надприродним чином: він може стати здоровим або хворим, придбати надприродні властивості. Люди, які придбали надприродні властивості, отримують соціальну роль експерта: чарівника, відьми, знахаря, який має сакральні знання і виконує ритуали, спрямовані на зміну станів організмів. Таким чином, утворюється багаторівнева соціальна система, в якій відбуваються інформаційні обміни даними щодо стану організмів і процедур, зміни їх станів через ритуальні дії. Координація в аспекті самоорганізації цієї системи має динамічний характер — поява експертів і дії експертів викликаний вірою в субстанції. Експерти поширюють в результаті своєї діяльності лікарські ритуали, фольклорні тексти про субстанції, що утворює позитивний зворотний зв'язок у зміні станів самої системи — збільшення кількості знань і експертів. Координація в аспекті управління ведеться на рівні людей і експертів через обміни даними щодо стану організмів і субстанцій з утворенням негативних і позитивних зворотні зв'язків між 1) людьми, 2) людьми-експертами в сакральних знаннях, 3) надприродними істотами, 4) природними одиницями.