Anthropology Communicates on International Humanitarian Action

A frequently expressed critique of international humanitarian sector is that it is a top-down, logistically-driven system relying heavily on standardised responses that make little, if any, adjustment for social and cultural differences between different disaster contexts and different affected local populations.

Focussing on a programme level case and an organisational case, this session in the Anthropology Communicates series will explore the role/s that anthropologists play in the sector, and their challenges and achievements in efforts to modify the sector’s approach. The programme level case will be that of establishing the Anthropology Platform which had a significant influence on the international response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The organisational case will be that of Médecins Sans Frontières experience in establishing a social science capability and using anthropology in its humanitarian programmes.

The panellists will be:

• Melissa Parker, Professor of Medical Anthropology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
• Beverly Stringer, Deputy Head of MSF’s Manson Unit - a multi-disciplinary medical team that supports and enables MSF field projects and drives improvements in public health policy and practice - and formerly Social Science Coordinator in MSF Holland.

The session will be chaired by John Borton, Senior Research Associate, Humanitarian Policy Group at the Overseas Development Institute and the founder and first Coordinator of ALNAP.

Professor Raymond Apthorpe, Honorary Secretary of the Royal Anthropological Institute, will cap the session with a summing-up of the discussion.