Social Anthropologist Didier Fassin Appointed to Faculty of the Institute for Advanced Study
The Institute for Advanced Study has appointed social anthropologist Didier Fassin as the first James D. Wolfensohn Professor in the School of Social Science beginning July 1, 2009. Dr. Fassin currently serves as Professor of Sociology at the Université de Paris, Nord, as well as Director of Studies in Political and Moral Anthropology at the Ecole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and is the Founding Director of the Institut de Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur les Enjeux Sociaux (IRIS). The James D. Wolfensohn Professorship is a newly created chair intended for a scholar who analyzes the history and cultures of non-Western countries from global and international perspectives, and whose research rests on ethnographic methodologies.
Peter Goddard, Director of the Institute, said of the appointment, “We are delighted that Didier Fassin will be joining our Faculty. He is a scholar of exceptional breadth, whose profound work has redefined the subjects on which he works. With his great energy and unique range of accomplishments, he will provide outstanding leadership in the field of anthropology at the Institute.”
Fassin’s diverse body of work has assimilated the theoretical and ethnographic foundations of the main areas of anthropology—cultural, social, political, medical—and has brought into focus how and why they intersect, align and diverge. Trained as a medical doctor, Fassin practiced internal medicine and public health for a decade in France, beginning in 1979, and served as an advocate for international medical cooperation in Chad, Guinea, Congo, Namibia, Peru and Bolivia. Much of his early research sought to bridge the disciplines of medicine and social science, work he refers to as the “political anthropology of health.” This research was based on field studies in Senegal, Ecuador, South Africa, and France, and resulted in publications that illuminated important aspects of urban and maternal health, public health policy and the AIDS epidemic. It also inspired critical dialogue across fields and disciplines. Focusing on how societies address social inequalities, their causes and mechanisms, Fassin investigated power relations around disease in urban Senegal, gender issues and maternal morality among Indian communities in rural Ecuador, and an epidemic of lead poisoning in children of Sub-Saharan African origins in inner-city Paris. His books during this time, Pouvoir et Maladie en Afrique (1992), L’Espace Politique de la Santé (1996) and Les Enjeux Politiques de la Santé (2000), as well as his many articles, focused new thinking in the field. Fassin also provided a broader anthropological perspective on the rising significance of health in contemporary societies, especially the way social problems were becoming redefined as medical problems.
Beginning in the late 1990s, Fassin articulated a larger vision for his work and for a field that he termed “political and moral anthropology.” While Fassin does not believe anthropology should define morality in relation to society, he argues that morality should be treated as a legitimate object of study for anthropologists and analyzed in its political contexts. Through his work with humanitarian organizations such as Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), Fassin was uniquely positioned to analyze major ethical ambiguities stemming from international conflicts in Kosovo, Iraq and Palestine. He offered compelling insights into decision-making in wartime and discussed more broadly the emergence of a global humanitarianism in the management of adversity. From this perspective, Fassin’s recent work is concerned with what he terms a “politics of compassion,” namely, the various ways in which inequality has been redefined as “suffering” and violence as “trauma.” In his recent book The Empire of Trauma. An Inquiry into the Condition of Victimhood (with Richard Rechtman, Princeton University Press, 2009), Fassin uses ethnographic work among asylum seekers to analyze the significance of trauma, the advent of the victim in the contemporary world and the ways in which suffering and trauma are leveraged for social and political ends.
The exploration of a tragic past in the present had led Fassin to post apartheid South Africa, a country confronted with the world’s worst health crisis—the AIDS epidemic. For seven years he investigated then-President Mbeki’s handling of the crisis, and provided a rich ethnography of Soweto and Alexandra by casting the vivid stories of AIDS patients against the historical backdrop of segregation, discrimination and exploitation. His book, When Bodies Remember. Experiences and Politics of AIDS in South Africa (University of California Press, 2007), is an eloquent and compelling analysis of the controversy created by the puzzling resistance of many South Africans to medical science, and, in the end, may be seen as an attempt to make sense of what seemed utterly incomprehensible. Fassin considers this effort of interpretation, achieved through a combination of ethnographical work and theoretical reflection, to be a major challenge for contemporary anthropology.
“Didier Fassin is an important addition to the School’s Faculty,” commented Joan Scott, Harold F. Linder Professor in the School of Social Science. “His original and pathbreaking scholarship will broaden our horizons and bring anthropology to prominence here once again.”
“The appointment to the Institute Faculty represents an unprecedented opportunity to continue my work in association with outstanding scholars from many fields,” stated Fassin. “It seems particularly fitting that I hold a chair that honors James Wolfensohn, who has drawn international attention to the importance of the contribution ethnographers can make in furthering our understanding of culture and politics in the developing world.”
Fassin earned his MD from the Université de Paris VI in 1982, and his Ph.D. in social science in 1988 from the Ecole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). He served as a researcher for the National Institute for Health Research (INSERM) in Senegal from 1984–86, and then was Assistant Professor in Infectious Diseases and Public Health at the Hospital Pitié-Salpétrière in Paris from 1987–89. After conducting research with the French Institute for Research in the Andes (IFEA) in Ecuador from 1989–91, he became Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Université de Paris, Nord, in 1991 and then Professor in 1997. In 1999, he was appointed Director of Studies in Political and Moral Anthropology at the Ecole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). He served as Administrator and then Vice President of Médecins Sans Frontières from 1999–2003. In 2007, Fassin established the Institut de Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur les Enjeux Sociaux (IRIS), which has research activities on five continents and focuses on social, political and moral change. Fassin is the author of seven books as well as numerous articles in social science and medical journals, and serves as international editor of the Medical Anthropology Quarterly. Concerned with the social and political uses of science, Fassin is a member of the Scientific Council of the City of Paris and of the Ethics Committee of the National Institute for Research in Agronomy. In 2007, in recognition of his academic achievements and leadership, he was appointed Professeur de Classe Exceptionnelle and also a Chevalier des Palmes Académiques. In 2008, he was awarded the Advanced Grant “Ideas” by the European Research Council for his program on contemporary moral economics.
The James D. Wolfensohn Professorship
The James D. Wolfensohn Professorship in Social Science was established in honor of Mr. Wolfensohn, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Institute from 1986 to 2007 and former head of the World Bank. It was funded by donations from Institute Trustees and Faculty as well as Wolfensohn’s colleagues and friends to acknowledge his 21 years of distinguished service to the institution. A new Membership in the School associated with this Professorship has been created by a generous donation from the Wolfensohn family. The first Wolfensohn Member has been selected for academic year 2009–10. The Wolfensohn Family Membership is an expression of Wolfensohn’s and his family’s commitment to the Institute and its mission, and it reflects their belief in the importance and future of local cultures and their desire to strengthen scholarship in the field.
About the Institute for Advanced Study
The Institute for Advanced Study is one of the world’s leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. The Institute exists to encourage and support curiosity-driven research in the sciences and humanities—the original, often speculative thinking that produces advances in knowledge that change the way we understand the world. Work at the Institute takes place in four Schools: Historical Studies, Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Social Science. It provides for the mentoring of scholars by a permanent Faculty of approximately 30, and it ensures the freedom to undertake research that will make significant contributions in any of the broad range of fields in the sciences and humanities studied at the Institute.
The Institute, founded in 1930, is a private, independent academic institution located in Princeton, New Jersey. Its more than 6,000 former Members hold positions of intellectual and scientific leadership throughout the academic world. Thirty-three Nobel Laureates and 40 out of 56 Fields Medalists, as well as many winners of the Wolf and MacArthur prizes, have been affiliated with the Institute.