Gill Haddow is a Senior Lecturer in Science, Technology and Innovation Studies at the University of Edinburgh
'The frequency of biomedical interventions-organ transplants, xenotransplants, implantable cardiac devices, 3-D bioprinting-in humans has raised myriads of philosophical and sociological questions about the identity (subjectivity) of the resulting bodies. Haddow ingeniously addresses such questions in this book. Drawing from both theory and empirical evidence, she distinguishes everyday cyborgs from the perceived monstrosity of fictional cyborgs. The key question she engages is whether biomedical interventions alter the identity of their human recipients. She cites evidence from selected informants-patients who received organ transplants-that affirm alteration in their thoughts and behaviors. Another group of Haddow's informants report having refused xenotransplants (cross-species organ donations) as yucky. Most respondents in Haddow's study are more accepting of technologies such as 3-D bioprinting than xenotransplantation, as in the former case, the recipient becomes the donor (having a needed organ harvested, i.e., bioprinted, from the body). Haddow makes a significant contribution to the sociology of the body, furthering the social-scientific understanding of everyday cyborgs as biomedically enhanced but modified humans and of the impact of techno-organic hybridity on their subjectivity. Students and scholars of bioethics, medical sociology, cyborg anthropology, and STS (science, technology and society) will find this book interesting. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates. Graduate students and faculty. General readers.' T. Niazi, University of Wisconsin, CHOICE (June 2022) -- .