Open AccessFighting Hydra
Author(s) -
Julia Rehsmann
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
tsantsa
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2673-5377
pISSN - 1420-7834
DOI - 10.36950/tsantsa.2017.22.7346
Subject(s) - lernaean hydra , outcome (game theory) , ethnography , duration (music) , operations research , computer science , epistemology , history , engineering , art , mathematical economics , economics , philosophy , literature , archaeology
This article sheds light on the experiences of people waiting for a liver transplant. I argue that waiting lists serve as a technological tool to deal with the uncertainties inherent in medicine, but like Hercules fi ghting Hydra, one tamed uncertainty is merely replaced by two new ones. Drawing on ethnographic material from Germany, I argue that these lists retain those waiting in a temporal limbo of uncertain duration and outcome, making them spatially, temporally and existentially immobile.