Texte remanié de: Thèse d'État--Histoire--Paris 1, 2003. / En appendice, choix de documents. Bibliogr. p. 550-553.

Thèse 3 cycle--Lettres--Paris X, 1979. / Bibliogr. p. X-XVI. Index.

This thesis absorbs and reflects on Choiseul Island responses and caution towards the making of anthropological knowledge. Initial interests that can easily become familiar to anthropology as research topics such as village life, local cosmology and local alternatives to cosmologies of climate and ecology, make way here for another activity of working through Choiseul responses to anthropology. In taking seriously the precautions and the considerations of people in this Solomon Islands locality, anthropology is invited to put a stoppage to practices that it would consider ordinary and part of anthropological knowledge making. This impasse for the discipline is outlined and explored in various chapters, in which usual styles of ethnography and topic-making take formation in respect of a Choiseul world that does not fit easily into encapsulation by anthropology. Effects for the discipline of anthropology are given consideration, within a wider view of imagining how an alternative anthropology in the vernacular can also entail an obviation of anthropology itself in favour of new forms of cultural sensitivity.

This project will examine the impact and the progress of Methodist missionary work on Choiseul from 1905 to 1941. The predominant European contact on Choiseul was with missionaries and this was significantly more recent than many of the other islands in the group. Choiseul was unattractive for settlement or commercial development because the lack of arable land meant that it was unsuitable for large plantations to be established. A lacuna exists in the current historiography of the Solomons with regard to Choiseul. A study of the Methodist Mission on Choiseul offers the opportunity to examine the development of the mission, and the people on the island during the period under study, and fill that gap. The nature of conversion to Christianity on Choiseul, and the way the missionaries, including European, Solomon Islanders and Pacific Islanders, operated, cooperated, and disagreed with the Choiseulese and with each other will be examined to help answer the question, to what extent was Choiseul a Methodist, or a missionary, island.

Cette thèse porte sur la mise en récit de procès dans les Causes célèbres et intéressantes, avec les jugemens qui les ont décidées (1734-1743) de François Gayot de Pitaval, et ce, sous les prismes du genre et de la filiation. Dans un premier temps, nous cernons l’émergence du genre littéraire des « causes célèbres » sous la plume de Gayot de Pitaval, auteur à la jonction de la Contre-Réforme et des Lumières. Nous mettons en lumière un processus de mise en récit flexible permettant d’introduire un regard critique sur le droit d’Ancien Régime, mais aussi d’investir les procès relatés d’un discours moralisateur à l’égard des « gens du monde », le lectorat mixte et non spécialisé auquel était notamment destinée cette collection. Nous démontrons que la volonté d’intéresser l’élite féminine au droit guida de manière significative les stratégies discursives de l’auteur. Dans un second temps, cette thèse se penche plus particulièrement sur l’incertitude de la paternité, un enjeu social et juridique récurrent au sein des Causes célèbres et découlant d’une construction de la paternité légitime reposant sur le mariage plutôt que sur un principe biologique. L’analyse de sept causes célèbres portant sur le désaveu d’un enfant illustre comment l’inconduite féminine – et le degré de doute qu’elle jetait sur la paternité biologique –influença la mise en récit de Gayot de Pitaval. L’auteur consolida la présomption de paternité fondée sur le mariage et déploya un discours prescriptif axé sur l’amour conjugal lorsque le moteur du désaveu était un mari « jaloux » tandis qu’une dissimulation émanant d’une épouse « coquette » donna plutôt lieu à une réflexion sur les limites de cette règle ainsi que sur l’écart entre le droit et la vraisemblance biologique. Si Gayot de Pitaval conforta la conception de la famille légitime comme fondement de la société d’Ancien Régime, nous constatons également au sein de ses Causes célèbres les germes d’une volonté de contrer les abus féminins, un courant qui se cristallisa dans le Code civil (1804). Cette recherche contribue ainsi à retracer l’évolution du genre littéraire des causes célèbres, mais également celle de la filiation au cours du XVIIIe siècle.

In 1763, France had just suffered a devastating loss to the British in the Seven Years' War. In almost an instant, France's claims to West Africa shrank to the tiny island of Gorée off the coast of Senegal and a few trading posts on the mainland. This drastic reversal of fortunes forced France to reevaluate its place in the world and rethink its overall imperial objectives and colonial strategies, and in an effort to regroup, the French Empire sent a new governor, Pierre François Guillaume Poncet de la Rivière, on a mission to regain its foothold in West Africa. From this tiny island, France eventually succeeded in overturning its devastating losses and establishing itself as the dominant force in the region over the next two centuries, so deeply ingraining its influence into the core of West Africa that its imperial influence is still felt today.Despite France's future success, Poncet's tenure as governor was fraught with mismanagement and poor planning. Poncet believed he had the full backing of the Duc de Choiseul, but Poncet's excessive zeal, inability to effectively employ and listen to subordinates, and rash interactions with the British undermined the French presence in the region and ultimately led to his dismissal. Poncet's governorship sheds new light on Choiseul's goals for the Senegambia region and his underestimation of what it took to establish a strong presence.