Round Table - 50 years of Doctors without borders (Médecins sans frontières)

Médecins Sans Frontières is celebrating its 50th anniversary. On this occasion and in the framework of the International Humanitarian Studies Association (IHSA) conference, the Crash organized a round table on the history of the organization, the myths surrounding it, and its recent evolution.

This roundtable, which brings together researchers and members of MSF, serves two objectives. 

The panelists look back at the story of MSF's origins by confronting it with history and analyze the association's contemporary discourse on its "founding principles". In addition, the speakers discuss the transformations of MSF over half a century, which have shaped the organization and fueled its debates over time: the evolution of the contexts of intervention, geopolitical upheavals, the personal trajectories of some members of the organization...

This round table is moderated by Bertrand Taithe, member of the Crash scientific committee and professor at the University of Manchester. The panelists present to the conference are:

- Isabelle Defourny, Director of Operations at MSF-OCP,
- Peter Redfield, Professor and Erburu Chair in Ethics, Globalization and Development, University of Southern California,
- Eleanor Davey, Honorary Fellow at Australian Catholic University,
- Rony Brauman, Director of Studies at Crash and former President of Médecins sans Frontières.

Summary: 

00:00 Introductive speech of Bertrand Taithe
04:59 Mego Terzian’s trajectory at MSF
12:24 Isabelle Defourny, the evolution of MSF staff until today
27:16 Peter Redfield, MSF as an anthropological research subject
42:19 Eleanor Davey, MSF and the sans-frontierism
55:51 Rony Brauman, Rony Brauman, the founding misunderstandings of MSF 
1:12:37 Conclusion, writing MSF’s history as an expertise-creating organization