摘要：This piece explores some of the dynamics of global health crowdfunding by examining the work of Watsi, a highly successful crowdfunding platform that raises funds to cover the costs of medical care for patients in countries throughout the global South. While Watsi relies on a somewhat traditional formula for fundraising that uses individual patient stories to attract donations, its origins, aims. and values reflect an imagined (and perhaps, probable) future of global health partnerships. What relationships and connections are enabled in this future space? What subjectivities, anxieties, and values are brought to the fore by Watsi’s modes of work? And what forms of intimacy and estrangement are enabled by such connections and relations? Watsi represents, I argue, a new kind of ‘drone philanthropy’ that both disrupts and evokes older forms of partnership, affiliation, and connection among donors, organizations, and individual recipients of aid.
