I am a French citizen born in Côte d'Ivoire. Initially trained as a social worker, I have been a child protection practitioner since 1987. My experience began in France, then extended to the field of humanitarian intervention and international development since 1990. I held various positions, from programme manager to expert consultant for United Nations agencies and major international child protection organizations.

In 2009, I decided to integrate the academe in order to "think my profession". I then chose Canada, and more specifically the department of anthropology at Laval University, Quebec, where I knew I could benefit from high-quality support in the anthropology of humanitarianism and human rights. My Master's research and my PhD thesis were both exploring humanitarian intervention towards child soldiers in the DRC.

After a long and diversified field experience, integrating the academe has allowed me to explore humanitarianism with a new perspective and to concretely consider "bridging" the two worlds (academe and humanitarianism).

My postdoctoral project:

My Banting Fellowship research project aims to explore the everyday social life of a group of ex-child soldiers fifteen years after their demobilization, using a collaborative model collecting their voices and opinions through questions formulated with them.

Standing from a critical anthropological point of view, contrasting with the humanitarian short-term lens and the child rights regime’s tendency to erase the voices of youth in order to emphasize their victimhood, this project aims at opening a space for young people as co-researchers to discuss questions about their present status, the strategies they have followed to reintegrate into civil society, and the family, conjugal and social relationships they live. In order to ease the process in a creative manner for a population that doesn’t hold equal levels of education, media & art-based methods will be privileged.

My specific objectives for this postdoctoral fellowship are to anchor my scholarship in interdisciplinary studies on human rights, to undertake collaborative research engaging humanitarian actors, and to receive mentoring on media art-based methods.