Vanuatu in all its states

Meeting with Marie Durand, Monika Stern and Éric Wittersheim to discuss their book published by Presses de l'Inalco, hosted by Sébastien Galliot.
Rendez-vous du salon de lecture Jacques Kerchache
Rendez-vous du salon de lecture Jacques Kerchache © Musée du quai Branly‎

"A multidisciplinary approach to current research on the history, sociology and anthropology of Vanuatu by specialists on this Pacific island state. Drawing on their extensive field experience in Vanuatu, the authors deliver a bilingual work whose various chapters in English or French provide a fresh perspective on the social transformations underway.

The anthropologists gathered here work on authority and power, witchcraft, health, humanitarianism, languages, housing, the environment, urban youth and music. Their contributions highlight Vanuatu's singularities in terms of its relationship to research, decolonization, economic globalization and ecological issues. An independent state since 1980, Vanuatu thus appears, over the course of fourteen chapters, in all its modernity and cultural specificities.
While presenting localized ethnographic research, it is above all the interconnected dimension of this Melanesian archipelago that this book aims to echo."

The meeting will be preceded by a screening of the short film Man Vila by Cecile Kielar and Eric Wittersheim (17 min).

The speakers

  • Marie Durand is a lecturer in social anthropology at the University of Strasbourg. Her research focuses in particular on architecture and infrastructure, relations to territories, domestic spaces and everyday practices.
  • Monika Stern is a CNRS research fellow and ethnomusicologist specializing in the music of the Melanesian archipelago of Vanuatu, where she has carried out extensive fieldwork since 1998.
  • Éric Wittersheim is a senior lecturer at EHESS. An anthropologist and filmmaker, his research focuses mainly on the genesis and transformations of the state in South Pacific societies.
  • Sébastien Galliot is a CNRS research anthropologist and Director of the Maison Asie-Pacifique UAR.