Gagné, N., 2015, « Brave New Words: The Complexities and Possibilities of an “Indigenous” Identity in French Polynesia and New Caledonia », The Contemporary Pacific, 27 (2) : 371-402. (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Contemporary Pacific, Vol. 25, No. 2, 2013
From a French perspective, French Polynesia is often described as an overseas territory that has been virtually decolonized through the granting of statutes of autonomy. In stark contrast, pro-independence local political parties still consider the country a colony and have successfully lobbied for a process of decolonization under United Nations oversight. This article assesses these competing claims through an analysis of the political evolution of the territory since World War II. The analysis shows that French Polynesia has never been genuinely decolonized. In the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, the French government arbitrarily pulled the territory out of all available international or French domestic decolonization processes, subjecting it to an anachronistic restoration of colonial authority that included the arrest and long-term imprisonment of its major political leader and a series of other unusually undemocratic measures. This led to, and culminated in, the construction of a nuclear testing facility, with tremendous environmental, health, and economic consequences during the following three decades. Later, after giving in to local protests demanding autonomy, France misused that concept not only to cover up a de-facto continuity of colonial rule but also to create a corrupt authoritarian local government favorable to French interests. Recent actions taken and attitudes demonstrated by the French government and its representatives, including repeated arbitrary modifications of the rules of local politics and meddling therein in order to secure their favorites in power, have shown that French colonialism in French Polynesia is alive and well. An international campaign for the decolonization of the country is thus clearly warranted. keywords: Tahiti, French Polynesia, colonialism, neocolonialism, autonomy, decolonization, self-determination.
Conflicting Identities and The Search for the Post-Colonial State in New Caledonia
2017
Through an extensive historical review and political analysis, the authors emphasize that in the search for the post-colonial state in New Caledonia, there have been three conflicting views of national identity: the ethnonationalism of the indigenous Melanesian Kanaks, the perpetuation, yet reinterpretation, of French colonialism, and, increasingly, a more accommodating pluralistic view. An updated demographic profile indicates that no one particular ethnic category is predominant; New Caledonia is clearly multicultural, although politics have focused around bipolar competition between the colonial French and the indigenous Kanaks. In pondering the future of New Caledonia, the authors conclude that both indigenous ethnonationalism and French neo-colonialism could in fact be accommodated within a pluralistic model; an effective pluralism policy can be formulated and promulgated, moving New Caledonia more purposefully towards full independence.
2020
dpa.bellschool.anu.edu.au and goals. Using tools from different disciplines (public law, Indigenous rights law and different branches of political science), and drawing on various forms of evidence (the media, militant press, academic articles, videos, interviews, lectures and personal interviews with current pro-independence and pro-Indigenous rights leaders), this paper compares the strategies of Indigenous rights proponents as well as proindependence leaders in order to determine their levels of concordance and dissonance, and to consider areas where they can be complementary. These issues are specifically examined in the context of the period since the 1988 Matignon-Oudinot Agreements. The first part of the paper reviews the different visions and strategies undertaken in New Caledonia in efforts to reclaim sovereignty. The second part exposes the mistrust that can be witnessed between the actors involved. The third part explores possible points of convergence between the approac...
From 1887 to 1946 the administrative apparatus known as the indigénat provided French administrators in New Caledonia with a set of exceptional measures to streamline the governing and summary repression of persons defined as indigènes (natives). This paper examines the place of the indigénat, the role of colonial administrators in defining one or more communities of race, and the variable status of the category of indigène in New Caledonia in the period to 1946. Particular consideration is given to: the influence (or absence thereof) of the science of race on administrative thinking about native policy in New Caledonia; the distinctions drawn between different categories of indigène; the extent to which cultural and political divisions between the Grande terre (mainland) and the Loyalty Islands were imagined or constructed in racial terms; and the situation of métis. The paper argues that an incipient definition of the indigène as a person of Melanesian, Polynesian, mixed or Oceanian race must be understood in the context of the development of the indentured labour and immigration régimes (the importation of workers from Asia and other parts of Oceania) as well as the ways in which the indigénat was differently applied and experienced between New Caledonia’s mainland and its dependencies (notably the Loyalty Islands), as well as by métis.
Tjibaou's Kanak: ethnic identity as New Caledonia prepares its future
2014
On 11 May 2014, New Caledonia elected its fourth, and final, local Congress under the historic 1998 Noumea Accord. There was no Australian media coverage of that election, nor of a violent protest at the end of May just out of Noumea, when Kanak protesters shot and injured two French gendarmes. Indeed, few Australians are aware that our closest neighbour just two hours flying time off the east coast of Queensland is France, in its Pacific possession, New Caledonia. One reason for this is that the French, along with the local pro-France and pro-independence groups who were engaged in a bloody civil war only 25 years ago, successfully negotiated a series of agreements ending the violence of the 1980s and postponing a sensitive self-determination vote in return for a promised schedule of handovers of responsibilities by 2014. These agreements, the 1988 Matignon/Oudinot Accords and the 1998 Noumea Accord, have so far presided over a long period of peace and prosperity, keeping the Frenc...