Main description:

Medical humanitarianism-medical and other health-related initiatives undertaken in conditions born of conflict, neglect, or disaster -has a prominent and growing presence in international development, global health, and human security interventions. Medical Humanitarianism: Ethnographies of Practice features twelve essays that fold back the curtains on the individual experiences, institutional practices, and cultural forces that shape humanitarian practice.

Contributors offer vivid and often dramatic insights into the experiences of local humanitarian workers in the Afghan-Pakistan border areas, national doctors coping with influxes of foreign humanitarian volunteers in Haiti, military doctors working for the British Army in Iraq and Afghanistan, and human rights-oriented volunteers within the Israeli medical bureaucracy. They analyze our contested understanding of lethal violence in Darfur, food crises responses in Niger, humanitarian knowledge in Ugandan IDP camps, and humanitarian departures in Liberia. They depict the local dynamics of healthcare delivery work to alleviate human suffering in Somali areas of Ethiopia, the emergency metaphors of global health campaigns from Ghana to war-torn Sudan, the fraught negotiations of humanitarians with strong state institutions in Indonesia, and the ambiguous character of research ethics espoused by missions in Sierra Leone. In providing well-grounded case studies, Medical Humanitarianism will engage both scholars and practitioners working at the interface of humanitarian medicine, global health interventions, and the social sciences. They challenge the reader to reach a more critical and compassionate understanding of humanitarian assistance.

Contributors: Sharon Abramowitz, Tim Allen, Ilil Benjamin, Lauren Carruth, Mary Jo DelVecchio-Good, Alex de Waal, Byron J. Good, Stuart Gordon, Jesse Hession Grayman, Jean-Herve Jezequel, Peter Locke, Amy Moran-Thomas, Patricia Omidian, Catherine Panter-Brick, Peter Piot, Peter Redfield, Laura Wagner.

Contents:

Foreword

-Peter Piot

Bringing Life into Relief: Comparative Ethnographies of Humanitarian Practice

-Sharon Abramowitz and Catherine Panter-Brick

PART I. INTIMATE INTERVENTIONS: HEALTH WORKER EXPERIENCES IN HUMANITARIAN CONTEXTS

Chapter 1. Dignity Under Extreme Duress: The Moral and Emotional Landscape of Local Humanitarian Workers in the Afghan-Pakistan Border Areas

-Patricia Omidian and Catherine Panter-Brick

Chapter 2. Compassion and Care at the Limits of Privilege: Haitian Doctors amid the Influx of Foreign Humanitarian Volunteers

-Laura Wagner

Chapter 3. Trust and Caregiving During a UNICEF-Funded Relief Operation in the Somali Region of Ethiopia

-Lauren Carruth

PART II. THE ARCHITECTURE OF HUMANITARIAN KNOWLEDGE, ETHICS, AND IMPERATIVES

Chapter 4. Evidence and Narratives: Recounting Ongoing Violence in Darfur, Sudan

-Alex de Waal

Chapter 5. Life Beyond the Bubbles: Cognitive Dissonance and Humanitarian Impunity in Northern Uganda

-Tim Allen

Chapter 6. Staging a "Medical Coup"? Medecins Sans Frontieres and the 2005 Food Crisis in Niger

-Jean-Herve Jezequel

PART III. STRONG STATES, WEAK STATES, AND CONTESTED HEALTH SOVEREIGNITIES

Chapter 7. What Happens When MSF Leaves? Humanitarian Departure and Medical Sovereignty in Postconflict Liberia

-Sharon Abramowitz

Chapter 8. Humanitarianism and "Mobile Sovereignty" in Strong State Settings: Reflections on Medical Humanitarianism in Aceh, Indonesia

-Byron J. Good, Jesse Hession Grayman, and Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good

Chapter 9. The British Military Medical Services and Contested Humanitarianism

-Stuart Gordon

PART IV. THE AFTERLIVES OF INTERVENTION

Chapter 10. Anthropology and Medical Humanitarianism in the Age of Global Health Education

-Peter Locke

Chapter 11. The Creation of Emergency and Afterlife of Intervention: Reflections on Guinea Worm Eradication in Ghana

-Amy Moran-Thomas

Chapter 12. Medical NGOs in Strong States: Working the Margins of the Israeli Medical Bureaucracy

-Ilil Benjamin

Conclusion. A Measured Good

-Peter Redfield

List of Contributors

Index