Mix & Match: Constituting racialised communities in UK stem cell donation

Mix & Match: Constituting racialised communities in UK stem cell donation
Dr Ros Williams, Department of Sociological Studies

Mix & Match is a Wellcome Trust-funded research fellowship explore racialised stem cell donor recruitment. Stem cell transplants are an increasingly common option for cancer treatment, but racially minoritised people in the UK are far less likely to find matching stem cell donors than their white counterparts. Charities and campaigners are seeking to address this inequality by organising donor drives and using social media to encourage minoritised people to register as stem cell donors. The project investigates the ways in which they do this, focusing on how racial difference is understood and used to engage communities in acts of donation. It uses ethnographic observation, interviews and digital methods to explore this offline and online activity. The research aims to explore how categories of difference are being used, and what the social and ethical implications of this may be. Its findings have been published in various social science journals and cited in policy.

Find out more on the project website https://mixandmatch.blog/ 

Image credit: Getty images