Abstract
A member of the School of Social Sciences at Princeton's prestigious Institute for Advanced Study (since 2009) and Director of Studies at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (since 1999), Didier Fassin was originally trained as an internist, which led him to take an early interest in public health and, in particular, its qualitative aspects through anthropology and sociology.
Conducted on three continents, in France, Senegal, South Africa, Ecuador and the United States, his work takes a critical look at moral and political issues in contemporary societies. They are based on a rigorous ethnographic method founded on a long-term presence in multiple fields, which has enabled him to study the experience of AIDS sufferers, detainees, asylum seekers and illegal aliens, as well as issues surrounding maternal mortality, infant lead poisoning, psychological trauma and humanitarian action. He has also investigated police, justice and prisons, to better understand how punishment is administered and distributed.
The inequality of life is one of the recurring questions in Didier Fassin's rich body of work, which includes some thirty books translated into eight languages and over two hundred scientific publications. Renewing perspectives through a dialogue between moral philosophy, critical theory and anthropology, he has set out to offer a new understanding of the social world and a fresh look at the politics of life.
