Emotions, Affects and the Politics of Care in the Process of Decolonisation
Discover the 2025 awarded project "Emotions, Affects and the Politics of Care in the Process of Decolonisation", selected by the Louis Dumont Fund for Research in Social Anthropology.
This research explores the impact of political instability and the insurrectional context of May 2024 on hospital staff in New Caledonia, particularly in relation to their perceptions and practices of care. As in other French overseas territories, hierarchies within New Caledonia’s healthcare institutions often mirror political and racial divisions rooted in the colonial past. At Nouméa Hospital, these divisions shape interprofessional relations, generating tensions that were further exacerbated by the 2024 riots.
This project aims to shed light on the affective dimensions of these dynamics: how are emerging tensions and conflicts during times of political crisis shaped by divergent affective modes and emotional repertoires?
The ethnographic investigation focuses specifically on the experiences of nursing assistants, porters, paramedics, and reception staff, who often act as cultural intermediaries between the Kanak population and healthcare institutions. The study seeks, on the one hand, to understand the place of political and colonial legacies in care relationships, and on the other, to analyse the role of health in the broader process of decolonisation in New Caledonia.
Nathanaëlle Soler
Nathanaëlle Soler is an associate researcher at the Centre for the Study of Social Movements (EHESS) and the Centre for Population and Development (IRD). She leads the Bodies, Health and Medicine in Oceania project at the MSH Paris Nord. Her doctoral research focused on the dehospitalisation of psychiatry in the context of New Caledonia’s decolonisation. She has since worked on emotions related to climate change in New Caledonia, as well as on the spiritual, affective, and political dimensions of the narratives they generate.
