Moving away from the iconic dyad of organ donor and organ recipient, this chapter delves into the social life of the kidney itself to engage one of the key analytic frames that anthropology has brought to the study of transplantation. First, exploring how the notions of gift and commodity have operated as analytic icons in anthropology writ large helps to reveal the moral and affective politics of the gift/commodity frame at work in the anthropology of transplant more specifically. Finding this frame illuminating but also limiting, this chapter argues for shifting the analytic gaze to include a longer temporal view...