Doctors Without Borders: Humanitarian Quests, Impossible Dreams of Médecins Sans Frontières

Awards:   Winner of PROSE (Sociology & Socal Work) 2015 Winner of PROSE Award for Best Book in Sociology and Social Work 2015 (United States)
Author:   Renée C. Fox (Annenberg Professor Emerita of the Social Sciences, University of Pennsylvania)
Publisher:   Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN:  

9781421413549


Pages:   328
Publication Date:   27 July 2014
Recommended Age:   From 17
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   To order   Availability explained
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Doctors Without Borders: Humanitarian Quests, Impossible Dreams of Médecins Sans Frontières


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Awards

  • Winner of PROSE (Sociology & Socal Work) 2015
  • Winner of PROSE Award for Best Book in Sociology and Social Work 2015 (United States)

Overview

This study of Medecins Sans Frontieres / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) casts new light on the organization's founding principles, distinctive culture, and inner struggles to realize more fully its ""without borders"" transnational vision. Pioneering medical sociologist Renee C. Fox spent nearly twenty years conducting extensive ethnographic research within MSF, a private international medical humanitarian organization that was created in 1971 and awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1999. With unprecedented access, Fox attended MSF meetings and observed doctors and other workers in the field. She interviewed MSF members and participants and analyzed the content of such documents as communications between MSF staff members within the offices of its various headquarters, communications between headquarters and the field, and transcripts of internal group discussions and meetings. Fox weaves these threads of information into a rich tapestry of the MSF experience that reveals the dual perspectives of an insider and an observer. The book begins with moving, detailed accounts from the blogs of women and men working for MSF in the field. From there, Fox chronicles the organization's early history and development, paying special attention to its struggles during the first decades of its existence to clarify and implement its principles. The core of the book is centered on her observations in the field of MSF's efforts to combat a rampant epidemic of HIV/AIDS in postapartheid South Africa and the organization's response to two challenges in postsocialist Russia: an enormous surge in homelessness on the streets of Moscow and a massive epidemic of tuberculosis in the penal colonies of Siberia. Fox's accounts of these crises exemplify MSF's struggles to provide for thousands of people in need when both the populations and the aid workers are in danger. Enriched by vivid photographs of MSF operations and by ironic, self-critical cartoons drawn by a member of the Communications Department of MSF France, Doctors Without Borders highlights the bold mission of the renowned international humanitarian organization even as it demonstrates the intrinsic dilemmas of humanitarian action.

Full Product Details

Author:   Renée C. Fox (Annenberg Professor Emerita of the Social Sciences, University of Pennsylvania)
Publisher:   Johns Hopkins University Press
Imprint:   Johns Hopkins University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.60cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.612kg
ISBN:  

9781421413549


ISBN 10:   142141354
Pages:   328
Publication Date:   27 July 2014
Recommended Age:   From 17
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order   Availability explained
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.

Table of Contents

"The Quests Part I 1. Voices from the Field Part II 2. Origins, Schisms, and Crises 3. ""Nobel or Rebel?"" 4. MSF Greece Ostracized 5. The Return of MSF Greece Part III 6. La Mancha Part IV 7. Struggling with HIV/ AIDS 8. In Khayelitsha 9. A ""Non-Western Entity"" Is Born Part V 10. Reaching Out to the Homeless and Street Children of Moscow with Olga Shevchenko 11. Confronting TB in Siberian Prisons with Olga Shevchenko Coda Acknowledgments Notes Index"

Reviews

This is a commendably reflective work of sociology that, more importantly, tells and remarkable history of care. Publishers Weekly A remarkable story of healing, conflict and the journey of an organization once dismissed as a bunch of 'medical commandos,' which has gone from being perceived as just another product of the turbulent 1960s to winning the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize to becoming one of the most important health care humanitarian organizations in the world. -- Emily Friedman Hospitals and Health Networks


Author Information

Author Website:   http://sociology.sas.upenn.edu/rc_fox

Renee C. Fox is the Annenberg Professor Emerita of the Social Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Experiment Perilous: Physicians and Patients Facing the Unknown, In the Belgian Chateau: The Spirit and Culture of a European Society in an Age of Change, and In the Field: A Sociologist's Journey and the coauthor of The Courage to Fail: A Social View of Organ Transplants and Dialysis and Observing Bioethics

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Author Website:   http://sociology.sas.upenn.edu/rc_fox

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