Prisons coloniales

Presentation

While New Caledonia and French Polynesia have regularly made headlines for the past 40 years due to their deplorable prison conditions, the imprisonment of colonized peoples has received little scholarly attention, a gap that Marie Salaün and Christine Salomon's book addresses. Drawing on a meticulous collection of scattered archival sources and in-depth fieldwork, the authors illuminate the transition from a prison system stemming from the colonial conquest to an institution adapted to the new political, social, and moral frameworks established by the Republic from the 1950s onward. The book also examines the challenges to the colonial order within prisons from the 1970s onward, through protests against nuclear testing and independence movements, up to the transfer of prison jurisdiction to the State at the end of the 20th century.

Authors

Marie Salaün est anthropologue, professeure à l’université Paris Cité, chercheure à l’URMIS. Ses travaux interrogent le mot d’ordre de « décolonisation » et la notion de « legs colonial » dans le Pacifique insulaire. 

Christine Salomon est anthropologue. Ses recherches sur les transformations des rapports sociaux de sexe et leur articulation avec les changements politiques en Nouvelle-Calédonie l’ont amenée à s’intéresser à différentes facettes des relations des Kanak avec les institutions, notamment judiciaire.

496 pages
16 x 24 cm
Publication : 05/05/2026
ISBN : 9782858314843