Nurturing compassion through care-giving and care-receiving: the changing moral economy of AIDs in China

Abstract

Based on the case study of an Aids clinic operated in Nanning by MSF, this paper looks at how one international NGO, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, or Doctors Without Borders), deals with the HIV-carrier patients in Nanning, the capital of Guangxi province in China. It explores the process of care-giving to the HIV patients by MSF employees (both foreign and local) and how the patients react to the ‘care-receiving’ provided by this foreign NGO. This is especially pertinent in China today as HIV-patients are the victims of discriminating policies and are still very much discriminated by the general population. MSF, viewed by the victims as a foreign NGO, is regarded as an organization seen as promoting a changing and compassionate attitude toward AIDs patients through their anonymous and non-discriminating practices. Through the practices and the discourse of MSF workers and the testimonies of the patients, this paper looks at how the moral economy of AIDs is evolving from a repressive and discriminative attitude towards the compassionate attention to individual suffering. As such, MSF, through its actions, is seen as one of the agents promoting attitudinal changes toward disadvantaged groups and is facilitating the emergence of an emotional and compassionate subject.

Keywords:

• care-giving
• care-receiving
• moral economy
• HIV victims
• innovative and free Aids/HIV treatment

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge the France/Hong Kong Procore program and the University Grants Committee of the University of Hong Kong for funding this research. Both authors are also grateful to the MSF and their workers in Nanjing for the interviews in China, Hong Kong and France. Both authors contributed equally to this paper.

Ethical Approval for this research has been granted by both the University of Hong Kong and the University of Paris Diderot Research Ethics Committees.

The authors do not have conflicts of interests in this research.

Notes

1. The same remarks are made by Jacqueline Ferreira about local staff working for MSF in Rio favelas (Ferreira, 2007).

2. Here are the international humanitarian organizations active in Guangxi and mentioned during our visit to Nanning: USAID, AusAid, World Vision, Family Health International, and the Clinton Global Foundation.