The unbearable lightness of being:

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• Peter Redfield, Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• Monday 17 October 2011, 12:45-14:00
• Centre of African Studies, The Mond building.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Dr Ruth Prince.

Abstract: This paper addresses legacies of national origin within global forms. Focusing on tensions related to human resources, I consider the case ofthe humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF or Doctors Without Borders). Since 1971, MSF has grown into a large, transnational NGO sponsoring a variety of medical projects worldwide. Amid recent efforts to “decolonize” its human profile, MSF has debated the appropriate role, motivation and remuneration of both international volunteers and local support staff it hires at mission sites. Given the range of routes situated persons must travel to achieve mobility, the organization’s conflicting impulses place it in a classic double bind: to remain mobile it must limit local attachments, while to achieve equality it must embrace them. The figure of the expatriate thus suggests a mundane measure for the threshold of inequality.

This talk is part of the Centre of African Studies and the Department of the History and Philosophy of Science series.

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• Centre of African Studies and the Department of the History and Philosophy of Science
• Centre of African Studies, The Mond building

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