About the Author

Melina Kalfelis

E-Mail: m.kalfelis@em.uni-frankfurt.de

Website: http://www.sfb1095.net/forschung/teilprojekte/b-06-flexibel-aus-armut-selbstbeschreibung-und-taktiken-der-ressourcenerschliessung-von-nro-akteuren-in-westafrika.html

Melina C. Kalfelis studied ethnology, psychoanalysis, and political science at Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main. Her Master’s thesis concentrates on the life world of local actors in Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Burkina Faso and their precarious life situation. Some of her results are published in her article “Flexibel aus Armut” in the journal Paideuma in 2015. Since December 2015 Melina C. Kalfelis has been a Fellow Researcher in the new collaborative research centre “Discourses of Weakness and Resource Regimes” located at the Goethe-University Frankfurt and associated with the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) at Justus-Liebig-University of Giessen. For her PhD, she puts an emphasis on biographies of local NGO-actors, the history of local NGOs in Burkina Faso, and their relationship with international donors. Another emphasis is local poverty concepts and discourses of development.

Contributions by Author: Melina Kalfelis

05/30/2016 _Perspective

Reflections on Hunger in Burkina Faso

The fight against poverty and hunger has been going on for decades. Statistics from the United Nations show that there has been some success: from 1990 to 1992 over a billion people experienced undernourishment, while from 2014 to 2016 the number declined to 794 million. This is certainly a record of progress. Nevertheless, there is still a considerable amount of hunger and furthermore we do not fully understand this phenomenon. What feelings are connected to hunger and what strategies exist to mediate them? Who is still suffering from hunger today and why? How do social relationships affect hunger? How do people cope with the insecurities that are connected to it? At what point does hunger become an emergency? What consequences does it have? Are there different regional concepts of hunger? What is a useful way for us to think about hunger?