The Sierra Leone-China Friendship Hospital and its Chinese Medical Team: From Maussian Gifts to a Reimagining of Sino-Sierra Leonean Friendship in Global Health

Abstract

Collaborative health initiatives can advance targeted, culturally meaningful, healthcare delivery outside of the geopolitical obligations of China to give and Sierra Leone’s obligation to receive and repay. In other words, guanxi is a way for individual Chinese and Sierra Leonean doctors to circumvent the Maussian gift dilemma engendered by the Sierra Leone China Friendship Hospital and the CMTs who embody this dissonance.