Pacific Support Officer
French Honorary Consul for Otago and Southland
Contact
Room 5C18
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.