Alejandra de Leiva Pérez presents her PhD thesis on the history of the blood donation in Spain

"The Red Cross and altruistic blood donation: A transnational biography of the Spanish case (1939-1975)" [Original title: La Cruz Roja y la hemodonación altruista: una biografía transnacional del caso español (1939-1975)]

PhD directed by Jon Arrizabalaga (Milà and Fontanals Institution for Research in the Humanities - CSIC), Àlvar Martínez Vidal (López Piñero Interuniversity Institute - University of Valencia) and Linda Palfreeman (Universitat CEU Cardenal Herrera), and supervised by Mònica Balltondre (iHC-UAB).

Alejandra de Leiva Pérez is a PhD student at the History of Science programme. She has a degree in Humanities (Pompeu Fabra University) and Human Nutrition and Dietetics (Ramon Llull-Blanquerna University) and a Master in Nutrition (UOC). She has also degrees in Film (UPF, La Fémis and Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg), Cultural Management (University of Warwick) and Teaching (VIU). She has participated in research projects on the history of diabetes, history of nutrition, war medicine and humanitarian action during the Spanish Civil War.

Abstract

This thesis explores the history of blood donation in Spain during the period 1939–1975. Through a study of the Spanish Red Cross (CRE) and its relationship with initiatives driven by the League of Red Cross Societies (LSCR—now the IFRC, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies)—the research examines the social and institutional organization of blood donation and the formation of a transnational system of blood governance.

At the international level, the LSCR transformed blood transfusion and donation into an arena for cooperation and the forging of a distinct identity within the Red Cross movement. Its promotion of voluntary, non-remunerated donation helped consolidate a framework that viewed blood as human tissue, the management of which had to be guided by public health criteria. This process was marked by tensions with the International Committee of the Red Cross regarding the delineation of each organization's roles within the International Red Cross Movement, as well as by Cold War dynamics and the persistence of paid-donation models.

In Spain, the role of the Spanish Institute of Hematology and Hemotherapy and the voluntary, unpaid blood donation program developed by the Spanish Red Cross (CRE) since 1959 stand out. The entrenchment of paid donation in the post-war period was a response to the material conditions of autarky, under which selling blood served as a survival strategy; furthermore, the fragmentation of the healthcare system had created a persistent gap between policy and practice, within a hemotherapy sector marked by gender inequalities. Politically, healthcare cooperation served as a mechanism to legitimize the Franco regime.

The thesis concludes that the transformation of the donation model does not stem from a linear process of modernization, but rather from the interaction of material constraints, institutional dynamics, ideological frameworks, and international connections. Furthermore, the consolidation of the altruistic model is interpreted through the concept of embedded altruism, demonstrating that altruism is not an innate individual quality but a phenomenon rooted in the social, institutional, cultural, and political structures that enable it.

Link to watch the presentation online: https://conecta.csic.es/rooms/627-ruh-ybi-0rl/join