“Back Then,” “Around Here,” and “Down the Road”: Proximity, Recursivity, and the Present Future in Transplantation

In this article, I examine the themes of proximity, recursivity, and the present future in transplant, with special attention to the perspectives and experiences shared by rural interlocutors during ethnographic fieldwork carried out during twenty-four non-consecutive months from 2007 to 2010 in the Midwest region of the United States. By revisiting from today’s vantage point a set of data gathered years ago, and suggesting the Möbius strip as a helpful model, I offer an examination of recursivity in transplantation that is itself born out of a recursive approach to research and analysis. Throughout, I draw upon and analyze data that were gathered through participant observation and qualitative ethnographic interviews with transplant patients and loved ones residing in rural areas, where interlocutors’ insights regarding their temporal and spatial movement in relation to transplantation index some of its frictions of futurity.