MSF and Humanitarian Negotiations for Access in the DRC
Myfanwy James
Conference and debate, June 28th, 2022, from 18:30 to 20:30 (Paris time), MSF (salle du premier, 14-34 avenue Jean Jaurès, 75019 Paris). The conference was livestreamed and translated simultaneously to English.
We were pleased to welcome Myfanwy James, historian and lecturer in Development Studies at the University of Oxford, to present and discuss her thesis entitled “Instruments of Identity: Médecins Sans Frontières and Humanitarian Negotiations for Access in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (RDC)”. Dr Léon Salumu, Program Manager for the DRC at MSF France, took part in the debate.
Result of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in North Kivu amongst Médecins Sans Frontières teams as well as an exploration of the organization’s archives, Myfanwy’s thesis analyses the experience of MSF’s Congolese employees who must navigate the complex politics of humanitarian brokerage. What is their role in humanitarian negotiations? How do they balance between one identity and another, as employees of a humanitarian organization and as people immersed in the conflicts that have been affecting the region for decades? What is the specific situation of women?
Myfanwy shows how MSF’s Congolese employees embody the many contradictions that are present in humanitarian work, including the simultaneous need for operational “proximity” while also maintaining adequate distance from daily conflict processes. Her thesis allows us to better understand the everyday practices of security management and negotiations for access conducted by organizations such as Médecins Sans Frontières. This work also comes at a time when inequality and diversity are at the forefront of discussions within the humanitarian sector, and her reflections are essential to understanding issues of “colonial continuities” in humanitarian action.
You can find a chapter of Myfanwy’s thesis in Volume 2: Issue 2 of the Journal of Humanitarian Affairs. A video presentation of her study is also available.
To cite this content :
Myfanwy James, “MSF and Humanitarian Negotiations for Access in the DRC”, 28 juin 2022, URL : https://msf-crash.org/en/conferences-debates/msf-and-humanitarian-negotiations-access-drc
If you want to criticize or develop this content, you can find us on twitter or directly on our site.
ContributePast events
Conference
Another approach to well-being at work
12/09/2021 - 06:30 PM 08:30 PMThe members of the Crash were very happy to welcome you all to this new conference-debate with occupational psychologists Yves Clot and Jean-Yves Bonnefond, two of the authors of “Le prix du travail bien fait – La coopération conflictuelle dans les organisations” (Paris, La Découverte, 2021 ; co-written with Antoine Bonnemain and Mylène Zittoun).
msf
Conference
Book launch event - Violences extrêmes. Enquêter, secourir, juger République démocratique du Congo, Rwanda, Syrie
11/17/2021 - 06:30 PM 08:30 PMWe were very happy to welcome two authors of the book: sociologist (CNRS) and Crash scientific committee member Claudine Vidal, and Jean-Hervé Bradol, doctor, former President of the French section of MSF and current director studies at the Crash, for the launching event of the newly-published book “Violences extrêmes. Enquêter, secourir, juger République démocratique du Congo, Rwanda, Syrie” (Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, Paris 2021). The event was hosted by Rony Brauman.
Conference
Asylum and exile. A history of the distinction between migrants / refugees
04/12/2021 - 06:30 PM 08:30 PMOn April 12 2021 we had the great pleasure of hosting a virtual CRASH conference with political scientist and sociologist Karen Akoka, fresh from her publication in November of “Asylum and Exile. A History of the Refugee/Migrant Distinction" (La Découverte, 2020). The author described and analyzed the trajectory of OFPRA, the French institution founded in 1952 and responsible for granting refugee status; she provided an insight into how the history of the distinction between migrants and refugees was established in France.
Conference
Clinical trials, between science and financial and academic interests
10/08/2020 - 06:00 PM 08:00 PMPierre Chirac, pharmacist and editor of the journal Prescrire, presented his analysis of the pharmaceutical industry's influence strategies and the special interests of university hospital researchers, their consequences on the reliability of drug information and the means now required to rectify a harmful situation.
Conference
The quantification of needs
12/10/2020 - 06:00 PM 08:00 PMCombining historical research and ethnographic investigations, the Africanist historian Joël Glasman plunges us into the factory of the homo humanitarianus, the average individual, on the basis of which "needs" and aid projects today are assessed. This conversation took place on December 10th 2020, during a conference-debate at Crash.
Conference
Territories: the illusion of identity
12/16/2019 - 06:00 PM 08:00 PMConference-debate on Monday 16 December 2019, 6-8pm in the 1st floor meeting room at MSF, 14-34 avenue Jean Jaurès 75019 Paris. Streaming and simultaneous translation into English available.
Can we talk about the specificities of the Middle East, Iran or the Mediterranean without reducing these territories to a culture or religion? On December 16, 2019, the CRASH team organised a conference-debate with Jean-François Bayart, a French political scientist who has devoted his work to the sociology of the State and identity illusions.