Isabelle Boiteau
- Role: Phd student
- Email: 1620401@uab.cat, isabelle.boiteau@gmail.com
- ORCID: 0009-0009-7982-4048
Research
My research topics are the masking practices, masquerade, sensorial experiences, emotions and feelings, rituals, gender, and the aspects of secrecy and power, in the Melanesia region of Oceania.
My doctoral research focuses on masking practices in southern New Ireland region of Papua New Guinea. My research incorporates sensorial elements, as well as emotions, feelings into my study. I analyze masks from these perspectives providing a deeper and more complex understanding of how masking practices exist as integral parts of these particular sociocultural worlds. I look at how different individuals and groups experience masking practices, as well as how the structures and beliefs that the practices construct come to shape their lives. Masking practices in the region are often associated with male secret societies. These practices are occurring in a country that nowadays is experiencing remarkable sociocultural and economic changes. My study also points out questions regarding gender and processes of cultural change in this context.