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Senior Lecturer
Pacific Support Officer
French Honorary Consul for Otago and Southland

Christiane Leurquin imageContact

Room 7N5
Tel +64 3 479 5413
Email christiane.leurquin@otago.ac.nz

Research interests

  • Discourses, practices and theories of anthropology in the Pacific
  • Pacific perspectives on wellbeing and health
  • Negotiating identity in post-colonial world
  • Orality and cultural studies in Oceania
  • Women perspectives on tradition and education in Kanaky/New Caledonia

Courses

Background

I studied History at the Université de Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne in Paris and completed a Doctorate on the History of the Kanak population. I was first employed as a Teaching Fellow at the University of Otago in 2008, and I have focused my research on the literature of the French speaking Pacific islands, with a particular interest in the literature of New Caledonia. I was interested in studying the emergent indigenous literature of this region through the prism of History.

The colonisation of the Pacific islands by the French left a mark on the culture and influenced the style of writing as well as the topics. I was looking at the portrait of the Kanaks by the French, as well as the testimony by the Kanaks of their own history and situation.

I also researched childhood and identity, analysing the ties between tradition and social break up, introspection and search for identity in the spatiotemporal location of childhood.

Roles

  • French Honorary Consul for Otago and Southland
  • Pacific Support Officer for the Social Anthropology Programme

Current projects

  • Research on Maurice Leenhardt's Kanak tales, collected in New Caledonia at the beginning of the 20th Century, with a particular focus on the representation of Kanak women, and analysing them considering oral tradition and oral history.
  • Thanks to the Pacific Funds, I am looking at intangible cultural heritage, and specifically traditions passed on from mothers to daughters in New Caledonia, through a series of interviews.

Publications

Leurquin C. (2024). Femmes Kanak. In conjunction with Fonds Pacifique, L’Académie des Langues Kanak (ALK) and Imag’in Productions [Digital anthology]. [Other Research Output]. Other Research Output

Kasarhérou-Leurquin, C. (2024). [Review of the book Black France, white Europe: Youth, race, and belonging in the postwar era]. Journal of the History of Childhood & Youth, 17(2), 313-315. doi: 10.1353/hcy.2024.a926874 Journal - Research Other

Kasarhérou Leurquin, C. (2023). Kanak women words of wisdom. Proceedings of the Association of Social Anthropologists of Aotearoa New Zealand (ASAA/NZ) Annual Conference: Engaging Anthropology. (pp. 39). Retrieved from https://www.asaanz.org/conference Conference Contribution - Published proceedings: Abstract

Leurquin, C. (2022, April). Paroles de femmes kanak. Verbal presentation at the Inter-University French Seminar, Auckland, New Zealand. Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs

Kasarhérou-Leurquin, C. (2022). [Review of the book Ignored histories: The politics of history edication and indigenous-settler relations in Australia and Kanany/New Calidonia]. Sites, 19(2), 111-113. [Book Review]. Journal - Research Other

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