Humanitarianism as a Politics of Life

On March 28, 2003, as on the last Friday of every month, the board of administrators of Medecins sans frontieres (MSF; Doctors without Borders) met between five and eleven o’clock in the organization’s head office on the first floor of a building in the eleventh arrondissement of Paris. On that particular evening a peculiar atmosphere of expectation and excitement reigned. There was of course the customary rapid overview of the situation in a number of “missions” in various parts of the world where the organization intervenes, followed by a more in-depth examination, with discussion of various specific topics concerning the running of the association and its humanitarian activities. The construction of the “international movement” was also raised: it referred to the network of sections in twenty countries, of which six are actually in a position to conduct operations, and which strives to ensure a coherence of identity and policy in the work of each national body beyond the details of local history and culture. The DNDi (Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative) program was another issue addressed: this is an original project that the organization had instigated two years earlier in order to establish, in international collaboration with private charitable foundations and public partners, a program of research and development similar