Disability, Leprosy, and Kanak Identity in Twentieth-Century New Caledonia

Sykes, Ingrid

doi:10.3828/jlcds.2016.15

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 5 publications

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“…63 More recently, connecting national, colonial and postcolonial, Ingrid Sykes' work explores the role of leprosy as disability in the formation of Kanak identity challenging French colonial able-bodied norms in 20th century New Caledonia. 64 Leprosy's postcolonial potency is plain in the range of work on leprosy in Hawaiʻi. Recent studies explore leprosy as a context for colonial abuse, a factor in political revolt, and a focus of homoerotic sexual dread, while Kalaupapa Leprosy 59 Brody, Disease of the Soul; Stephen R. Ell, 'Blood and Sexuality in Medieval Leprosy', Janus 71 Settlement on Molokai serves as an exemplary 'dark heritage site'.…”

Section: The Postcolonial Historiography Of Health and Leprosymentioning

confidence: 99%

Histories of Leprosy: Subjectivities, Community and Pacific Worlds

Luker

Buckingham

2017

The Journal of Pacific History

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Leprosy (or Hansen's disease) was a problem in the colonial Pacific. To control the disease, administrations there and elsewhere tried to isolate so-called 'lepers'. After a cure became available from the 1940s, this policy of segregation gave way; and by 2000 the World Health Organization's goal of 'eliminating' leprosy as a global health burden was declared met. Yet leprosy remains a challenge in many parts of the Pacific and the world. In the Pacific, the historiography of leprosy also raises questions. This article compares the extent of the published research and public awareness of the histories of leprosy relating to the Hawaiian island of Molokai and the Fijian island of Makogai. We further note contrasts between colonial and postcolonial perceptions of the disease. We scope the recent historiography of leprosy, which provides a context for the new research on leprosy in the southwest Pacific collected here. This new research addresses the themes of community formation in places of isolation and the subjective experiences of those affected by the disease. Finally, we offer readers two messages: the first of connection, the second, of humanity.

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Section: The Postcolonial Historiography Of Health and Leprosymentioning

confidence: 99%

Histories of Leprosy: Subjectivities, Community and Pacific Worlds

Luker

Buckingham

2017

The Journal of Pacific History

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Humanitarian quarantine in practice: medicine, religion and leprosy in New Caledonia

Sykes

2017

Anthropology & Medicine

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Medicine and religion worked in close synchronisation during the leprosy outbreak of New Caledonia (1890-1950). Once isolation of leprosy-affected people became mandatory doctors and missionaries came together to promote a particular form of medical practice that tied charitable zeal with cutting-edge medical research, developing a sophisticated set of medical practices that catered for the soul as well as the body. Such practices went hand-in-hand with ideas developed by doctors in the earlier stages of the epidemic about the way in which the disease had entered the Kanak (local Melanesian) population. Doctors and missionaries admitted that immoral colonial channels had upset the delicate balance of local social and biological rhythms. Yet they also believed that the highly contagious nature of the outbreak was linked to the inferior state of Kanak. This paper aims to highlight the way in which the leprosaria system in New Caledonia represented a double-edged moral high-ground within the French medical colonial narrative. It tracks the complex way in which emotionally charged arguments about contagion, science and spirituality constructed an ideology of humanitarian quarantine which was used to justify a highly aggressive form of medical biocontrol.

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Disability, Leprosy, and Kanak Identity in Twentieth-Century New Caledonia

Cited by 2 publications

References 5 publications

Histories of Leprosy: Subjectivities, Community and Pacific Worlds

Histories of Leprosy: Subjectivities, Community and Pacific Worlds

Humanitarian quarantine in practice: medicine, religion and leprosy in New Caledonia

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