Humanitarian Space and the Social Imaginary: Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders and the Rhetoric of Global Community

Abstract

Contemporary processes of globalization beckon consideration of the discursive forces that shape our perceptions of community, group identity, solidarity, and belongingness. The freedoms and limits endemic to life in a globalized world afford a variety of communicative resources for those seekingto promote humane social action. In this article, the author engages the discourse of Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders, a humanitarian-based nongovernmental organization, to illuminate its stake in contemporary global politics. Through its rhetorical crafting of a public image of neutrality, its use of media channels to publicize events, and its discursive construction of a humanitarian space for social action, Médecins Sans Frontières conscripts the powerful ethos of the social imaginary in an attempt to forge a global community uniting individuals, governments, nongovernmental organizations, and international institutions.