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1. Political Anthropology of mental Health in Lifou (New Caledonia)
Nathanaëlle Soler
Centre d’étude des mouvements sociaux, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales
Date of the defense : December 4th 2019
Committee members:
Laëtitia Atlani-Duault, Research Director, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement
Natacha Gagné, Professor, Université Laval
Katie Kilroy-Marac, Associate Professor, University of Toronto
Michel Naepels, Research Director, EHESS and CNRS (doctoral supervisor)
Benoît Trépied, Researcher, CNRS
Abstract
This research explores the reconfiguration of psychiatric intervention in the context of the
decolonization of New Caledonia. To do so, it looks at the representations, histories of patients,
care practices and discourses that frame mental disorders on the island of Lifou.
In the context of the greater autonomy given to the institutions of New Caledonian, how are
psychiatric practices which are strongly marked by the colonial legacy opening up and changing?
How has the subjective experience of mental disorders and their care been changing?
This dissertation is based on 14 months of fieldwork working at the intersection of
various ethnographic entry points and angles such as family and institutional spaces of care, the
rural villages of Lifou versus the urban space of Nouméa, narratives of people suffering from
mental disorders and their families, but also the narratives and stories of healers, customary
chiefs, pastors, nurses, psychologists and psychiatrists. Through a participant-observation led
method of research that was employed in a decentralized pedopsychiatric institution on the
island of Lifou, I analyzed the changes in European and Kanak discourses on mental health as
well as their means of resolving mental disorders, all within the context of larger changes in
techniques of governmentality. A few case studies help unfold the various patient histories that
exist between these different spaces and sheds light on the subjective experience of mental
disorders as well as the way in which families negotiate care in new treatment facilities. In order
to better understand the healthcare institutions and actors, I also retrace the history of colonial
psychiatry in New Caledonia – from an asylum-based psychiatry which was conceived within the
prison colony, to its opening up in the frame of decentralized structures which take charge of
care provision in addressing social suffering.
This dissertation works to unravel the different dimensions of the political space of mental
health, from the subjective experience of mental disorders to therapeutic power, for care
institutions to the socio-sanitary actors who work within them. It shows how this space is criss-
crossed by tensions between the ethics of relationality on the one hand, the techniques of
discipline carried out through colonial history, and the institutional reconfigurations linked to
the post-colonialism context and the ensuing neoliberalization of the economy, on the other.
Keywords: Political anthropology, medical anthropology, ethnography, New Caledonia, Lifou,
history of colonial psychiatry, mental health, governmentality, indigeneity, subjectivity,
relationality, colonial violence, therapeutic power