As part of its contribution to MSF's critical self-reflexion, the CRASH regularly invites outside speakers, researchers and key civil society figures to come present their perspectives and their work on general issues that intersect with the concerns of humanitarian action. Intended primarily for an internal audience - but open to others closely connected to the association - each conference is followed by an open discussion.
Immunization: new perspectives on vaccines - Conference with Lise Barnéoud
12/05/2017 - 05:00 PM 07:00 PMWho profits from vaccination? Individuals? Society? Companies? Is vaccination efficient? Is it dangerous? Profitable? What are the factors influencing public opinion in this domain? Lise Barnéoud, science journalist and author of Immunisés ? Un nouveau regard sur les vaccins, has engaged in an investigation revealing multiple - and sometimes contradictory - realities observed in the French vaccination sector. She has carried out her investigation from three distinct viewpoints: the one of a mother who needs to decide whether to vaccinate her children or not; of a journalist leading an enquiry; and of a scientist analyzing how facts are built.
Lise Barnéoud was a Crash guest speaker at a conference on vaccination held on December 5, 2017. A discussion with Epicentre, Crash and the MSF Medical Department allowed us to exchange views on vaccinal policy, which remains a cornerstone of MSF operations and a recurring subject of discussion and controversy.
Humanitarian anthropology : conference with Sharon Abramowitz
10/23/2017 - 04:00 PM 06:00 PMSharon Abramowitz is an anthropologist and a visiting researcher at the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University, co-editor of recently published Medical humanitarianism. Ethnographies of practice. She has devoted much of her work to responding to epidemics - most recently in Ebola, and in West Africa, Liberia in particular.
During the conference organized by MSF-Crash on 23 October 2017, she discussed the contribution of medical anthropology to humanitarian action as well as her latest book and most recent projects.
Eyal Weizman - Forensic Architecture at work
02/15/2016 - 06:00 PM 08:30 PMEyal Weizman, the founder of « Forensic Architecture » at the Goldsmiths College (University of London) came to present the project as well as a number of his works at a MSF - Crash conference organised at MSF.
The polio eradication campaign put to test
02/04/2014 - 12:30 PM 06:30 PMThe polio eradication campaign has indeniably and remarkably succeeded in tumbling down the number of polio cases worldwide. But difficulties currently faced by the Programme -pockets of social resistance in several countries, reinfection of some countries, outbreak of epidemics associated with strains of vaccine-derived polio viruses- indeed challenge one of the main assumptions underlying the objective of the eradication itself : the full compliance of an entire population to a public health program.
Living a Natural Disaster
11/03/2010 - 06:00 PM 08:00 PMPeople wandering through the rubble in Haiti, arms outstretched begging for help amid the floods in Pakistan: the media coverage of disasters invariably features helpless victims, overwhelmed by the disaster, waiting to be helped...
MSF’s contributions to the changes in trans-national medicine
02/18/2010 - 06:00 PM 08:00 PMThe emergency and constraints of certain catastrophes force MSF teams to medical and operational audacity. To take new paths or stray away from official protocols is to run the risk of doing things less well, of perhaps doing harm and dilapidating resources...
Grounds for divorce ? MSF and the international criminal court
04/08/2009 - 06:30 PM 08:30 PMIn 1998 MSF decided to support the creation of the International Criminal Court. 10 years later MSF stated that it ‘would not cooperate and would not transmit any information to the ICC'. How can we explain this change of position?
From their point of view
03/10/2009 - 06:00 PM 08:30 PMThe reasons why we are accepted, tolerated or sometimes rejected in the contexts where we work are often obscure. Caroline Abu-Sada and her team of sociology student shed some light on these issues.