James Smith

⚡TODAY governments 🌍🌏🌎 meet at @WTO to discuss a proposal that would speed up access to #COVID19 medical tools for everyone. Ask your country to be on the right side of history and support #NoCovidMonopolies! Help us keep up the pressure! 👇 bit.ly/36Wz126

What about when the state is the primary aggressor? Acts of resistance on the margins, as hooks says. How does collaboration with govt compromise ‘legitimacy’ (however defined...)? More needed on this for #Rakhine, which appears downplayed in favour of a profile on our HIV work

Great to see the question of collaboration framed in relation to coloniality, saviourism, paternalism. Certainly resonate in relation to MSF’s arrogant approach. Does this mean collaboration is always one element in the pursuit of ethical, respectful, equal and right?

Latest analysis from one of @MSF’s reflection groups, by @SeanHealyMSF @urvashi_aneja @PRHHO @Humanicontraria, dispelling the myth of MSF as non-collaborative, ‘go it alone’

"96% of the @pfizer vaccines have been booked out by rich countries, leaving the poorest 70 countries in the world with only 1 out of 10 of their people vaccinated next year," says @Winnie_Byanyima in this interview with @BBCNews. We need a #PeoplesVaccine, not a profit vaccine.

@HSlim_Oxford @Charter4Change @romainmurphy @David_A_Fisher Tragic expose of a widespread practice and mentality in @MSF, from the DRC to Myanmar and beyond... @JamesMyfanwy.

"Complementarity is not an egalitarian practice. It helps to maintain the racialised hierarchy between foreign decision-makers and their 'native' assistants." Important study by @jamesMfanwy of proximity dogma + #localization failure @Charter4Change @romainmurphy @David_A_Fisher

"Because of their social and political embeddedness [local staff] are perceived by their foreign colleagues as a potential risk to MSF’s performance of neutrality and impartiality...the presence of temporary foreign staff is seen as a counter-weight to the embeddedness of locals"

Superb scholarship on proximity and the performance of humanitarianism in DRC by @JamesMyfanwy, drawing from in-depth work on @MSF. manchesteropenhive.com/view/journals/… cc: @apoelhekke @H_Pagano @mikafromparis

One for you too @AmyNeilson12, @Turtle1doc given recent discussions on how "local" staff are written out of conversations related to risk and security management in @MSF's public discourse...

COVID-19 in humanitarian settings: documenting and sharing context-specific programmatic experiences dlvr.it/Rm73vl

Glad to be able to join! cc @CLee_EL. @HSlim_Oxford @MHuntMcGill @LisaSchwartz224 - may be of interest to your students

Absolute pleasure to speak with @The_HealthMint, @amahusein, @DrMercyKorir on triage and the complexities of difficult decision making in the face of scarce resources. So much more to be said on this important topic! youtube.com/watch?v=aYTuZQ… #HCBerlin

"Triage ist ein Prozess der Verhandlung mit Kolleg*innen, Familienmitgliedern, der Patient*in selbst, aber auch ein Prozess des Widerstandes - als Arzt/Ärztin kann es sehr schwierig sein, nicht so viel wie möglich für eine einzelne Person zu tun." @james_MSF beim #HCBerlin

On of the takeaways of the pandemic for @james_msf: "We really need to use this opportunity to reorientate our domestic policy making towards essential services like healthcare and education." #hcberlin

@SeanHealyMSF Thanks for sharing Sean. Certainly thought-provoking. But palliation? *Inevitable* death. Perhaps in the acute, but attempting to palliate someone who has a decent chance of life if X or Y factors change, an unsavory task. Is our role really to accept inevitability of death...?

.@Lili_Assaba - there cannot be "five steps to decolonise your institution". Decolonisation is complex, messy, involves friction. No neat or clean ways to decolonise institutions and practices that have violent and highly problematic pasts and presents #HCBerlin

Reflecting on how the decolonisation conversation has developed, @HebaJournalist suggests "We're well past the narrative around "is colonialism at play"". Optimistic too, but internal conversations still suggest a lot of resistance to this reality #HCBerlin

Playing catch up on yesterday's @HumConBerlin sessions. Discussion between @arbiebaguios @anitakatt @HebaJournalist and @Lili_Assaba on Decolonising Humanitarian Action now online: youtube.com/watch?v=w_uiGM… #HCBerlin

"Liberation, solidarity ... those words aren't used in humanitarian discourse" - @Tammamo. While we so often hear we're standing "in solidarity with" one community or another, how much is that true to the political meaning of solidarity? cc @sridhartweet #HCBerlin