Didier Fassin

Didier Fassin
James D. Wolfensohn Professor
School of Social Science

Didier Fassin is an anthropologist and a sociologist who has conducted field studies in Senegal, Ecuador, South Africa, and France. Trained as a physician in internal medicine and public health, he dedicated his early research to medical anthropology, illuminating important issues about the AIDS epidemic, social inequalities in health, and the changing landscape of global health. More recently, he has developed political and moral anthropology, a new domain of inquiry that analyzes the reformulation of injustice and violence as suffering and trauma, the expansion of an international humanitarian government, and the contradictions in the contemporary politics of life. His present project, a contribution to an anthropology of the state, explores the political and moral treatment of disadvantaged groups, including immigrants and refugees, through an ethnography of police, justice, and prison.

Université Pierre et Marie Curie, M.D. 1982; École des Hautes Études en Science Sociales, Ph.D. 1988; National Institute for Health Research (INSERM), Senegal, Junior Researcher 1984–86; Hospital Pitié-Salpétrière, Assistant Professor 1987–89; French Institute for Research in the Andes (IFEA), Ecuador, Senior Researcher 1989–91; Médecins Sans Frontières, Administrator 1999–2001, Vice President 2001–03; Université Paris 13, Assistant Professor 1991–97, Professor 1997–2007, Professeur de Classe Exceptionnelle 2007–2009; École des Hautes Études en Science Sociales, Director of Studies 1999–, Institut de Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur les Enjeux Sociaux, Founding Director, 2007–10; Institute for Advanced Study, James D. Wolfensohn Professor 2009–; Medical Anthropology, Associate Editor 2010–; Scientific Council of the City of Paris, Member; Comité Medical pour les Exilés, President 2006–; Chevalier des Palmes Académiques 2007

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