by LIU Xiuyuan (PhD Candidate, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, KU Leuven)

LIU Xiuyuan (PhD candidate, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, KU Leuven) will give a talk titled: “Aid Life: Everyday Encounters and the Sociality of Chinese Medical Aid in Africa.” with the support of LAMC and Afric@ULB.

China has a long history of sending medical teams to Africa. In addition to hospital work, Chinese doctors navigate everyday life and develop social relationships. Based on ethnographic research conducted in China and Burundi between 2022 and 2024, this presentation proposes “aid life” to examine how Chinese doctors develop everyday relationships with local people within the framework of medical aid, and how these relationships give aid social meaning. The presentation focuses on moments when aid work and everyday life intersect, and on the clashes of ideas and negotiations that emerge. As members of a state-led aid mission, Chinese doctors sometimes consciously position themselves as representatives of China and regulate their conduct, but they also maintain individual spaces within collective life. In their interactions with local people, different understandings of values such as respect, responsibility, and family come together, sometimes resulting in friction and negotiation. I argue that “aid life” is relational and social: for Chinese doctors, the meaning of aid extends beyond hospital work to encompass interpersonal relationships and the negotiation of everyday boundaries. By addressing these everyday interactions, I consider how Chinese medical aid in Africa acquires social meaning beyond the workplace, and why everyday life is an important dimension for understanding Chinese approaches to aid.

LIU Xiuyuan is a doctoral student in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at KU Leuven. His doctoral research examines Chinese medical aid in Burundi, focusing on how Chinese doctors and local medical workers navigate everyday work. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Burundi and China between 2022 and 2024, his dissertation explores how medical aid operates through work, mobility, communication, and relationships across different institutional and social contexts. He examines several dimensions of this cooperation, including the coordination of medical work, the medical infrastructures, doctors’ self-development, and the everyday interactions between Chinese doctors and the local people. His research asks how medical aid is organized and experienced, and what these processes reveal about the social and temporal dimensions of contemporary China-Africa medical cooperation.

Monday 12th October 2026, from 12:15pm - 13:45pm

Room Doucy
Building S - Level 12
ULB - Solbosch Campus

Registration : https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/TuiNuNHK68

Contact : east@ulb.be