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The French overseas territory of New Caledonia, called " Kanaky " by the indigenous Kanak people who represent around 40% of the total population, is preparing a referendum to be held on the question of political independence from France. The context is the Noumea Accord of 1998, which provides not only the transfer of political competences from Fr...
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... suspend the raising of the issue on self-determination for a 10 year-period, to accelerate economic development in the frame of a spatial rebalancing policy between the North and the South and a political restruc- turing of the country in three provin- ces (Nord, South and Loyalty Islands), two of which are governed by the independence movement (Fig. ...
Citations
... New Caledonia could be described from a political science perspective as a polarised polity. The primary political cleavage is around the issue of independence from France (see Chauchat 2017;Forrest and Kowasch 2016). A referendum on the issue was held in November 2018, resulting in a relatively narrow defeat for the independence option (Chauchat 2019;Maclellan 2019b). ...
This chapter explores women’s engagement in politics in New Caledonia over time. Despite widespread resistance to western conceptualisations of feminism, women’s organising in New Caledonia has a long history. Although women’s movement has historically been fragmented along ethnic and ideological lines, a strong women’s coalition emerged during the debate over the French parity laws. Activists from both the pro-independence and loyalist sides of politics campaigned strongly to ensure the parity laws would be implemented in the territory. These laws, and the advocacy from local women’s groups, have ensured that since 2004 women have been represented in New Caledonian politics in near-equal numbers to men. Men still dominate key positions of political power, and in the complex political environment of New Caledonia, gender is just one political identity among many, making issues of representation fraught. Yet women’s increased access to politics has had a substantive impact in New Caledonia: enabling the articulation of diverse viewpoints, enhancing women’s status as leaders and increasing attention paid to key gender policy issues. Building on a long history of women’s participation in decision-making, collective action and political activism in the territory, the parity laws have created an expanded political sphere for women.
... This was expressed in a statutory reform in 1969 (the lois Billotte). Nickel, chromium and cobalt were defined by this law as "economically strategic resources" (nickel is used in armaments and by the aeronautic industries), and the New Caledonian municipalities were transferred to the control of the French state, ending a period of greater tolerance of local autonomy (Forrest and Kowasch 2016). ...
... Demands for independence rose among Kanak, along with their political consciousness and understanding of their systematic marginalization, particularly when students studying in France returned to the islands after the 1968 protests there (Chappell 2003). But between 1969-1972, the so-called "first nickel boom", more than 8,000 French citizens arrived in New Caledonia for work, tipping the demographic balance (Forrest and Kowasch 2016). In-migration was supported by the French government, still aiming to increase the proportion of non-Indigenous residents. ...
... The Nouméa Accord of 1998 stated that colonization had attacked the dignity of the Kanak people and deprived them of their identity (Mokkadem 2013) and it was this Accord that extended the date of the independence referendum further to the period of 2014-2018. Transfer of political competencies from France (except sovereign powers that include defense, foreign affairs, currency, law and order, and justice) was termed "shared sovereignty", linked to a "common destiny" (Forrest and Kowasch 2016;Mokkadem 2013). The aim was to avoid the violent struggles of the 1980s, promoting more unity across the whole territory. ...
In the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia, conflict and difference between Indigenous Kanak people and European settlers has existed at least since the 1850s. We interrogate the geopolitical ecology of these islands, which is deeply wedded to natural resource extraction, is instrumentalized in political debate, power struggles, conflict, and the mining sector. Territoriality, including changes to political borders and access to land, has promoted the interests of the key actors in shaping the future of the islands. Violence in the 1980s was followed by the Matignon Accords (1988) and three provinces were established (North, South, Loyalty Islands). The South Province is governed by a party loyal to France, and the others are in the hands of the Indigenous Kanak independence movement seeking full decolonization and independence. The strengthened regional autonomy that emerged from the creation of provinces has permitted the Kanak-dominated ones to control certain political competencies as well as to guide economic development much more strongly than in other settler states, notably through a large nickel mining project in the North Province. Provincialization has not diminished ethnic divisions as French interests hoped, as signaled by voting in the close-run but unsuccessful 2018 referendum on independence from France. We explore the ironies of these efforts at territorial re-ordering, which are layered on significant spatial and racial disparities. Re-bordering has enabled resurgence of Kanak power in ways unanticipated by the architects of the Accords, but without a guarantee of eventual success.
Key Words: New Caledonia, geopolitical ecology, politics of mining, decolonization, Kanak identity
... The undermining of political autonomy was followed by rising demands for (Kanak) independence. Between 1969-72, the so-called "first nickel boom", more than 8,000 French citizens arrived in New Caledonia (Forrest and Kowasch 2016). The migration was again supported by the French government, still aiming to increase the proportion of non-indigenous residents. ...
... For the first time in French history, the various political accords provided the establishment of legislative power in an overseas territory and the transfer of political competencies leading to "shared sovereignty" (Forrest and Kowasch, 2016). The Noumea Accord stated that colonisation had attacked the dignity of the Kanak people and deprived them of their identity (Fisher fc) and extended the date of the independence referendum to 2018. ...
In this chapter we relate New Caledonia's geopolitical history to key themes in political ecology. This small island territory exemplifies many of the problems experienced by the world's few decolonized states. Recent referendum results on independence from France conceal a geopolitical ecology of struggle going back to the mid 1800s, one that led to the slow reorientation of a mineral rich colonial island territory towards devolution of political power, but not yet to independence. The colonial period led to land dispossession, forced labour and genocides imposed on indigenous Kanak clans. But the lesson for political ecologists is not the usual one of oppressive colonial regimes discriminating against an indigenous minority, with capitalist firms overriding indigenous territory and culture and pillaging natural resources. This happened in abundance in the past, but today it has been possible for an indigenous Kanak minority to turn natural resource wealth some way to its own advantage. Nowhere else in the world does an indigenous group, working through its provincial government and a shell company called SMSP, control the majority shares in a mining enterprise on the scale of Koniambo. There are tensions between the local negative effects of mining, indigenous participation in global capitalist commodity chains, and geopolitical struggles to reclaim and celebrate indigenous identity.
The sessions of the Ouvéa local council attract the ethnographer’s attention because of the discrepancy between their discussions and local daily life on the island. On the one hand, these sessions look like any other local council sessions, including those of metropolitan France. But on the other, they also present various peculiarities characteristic of Ouvéa’s social and cultural context.
As elsewhere in the world, the organisation of political power observed and experienced during local council sessions is not simple. On the contrary, it exhibits hybrid characteristics from both a French institutional republican political world and from the so-called Kanak customary political universe. This chapter explores what J.-M. Tjibaou named “colonisation within the Republic” (Tjibaou, La présence Kanak. O. Jacob, Paris, 1996) by exploring this aspect of hybridity in a case study based on a long-term ethnography of local political practices and, more particularly, of the local council sessions held between 2007 and 2010.
In New Caledonia, national independence is still on the agenda, but the “Indigenous strategy” – which relates to the global Indigenous movement and UN norms regarding Indigenous rights – is also being explored with a view to furthering decolonisation. The latter is, however, relatively new in the struggle to regain sovereignty and occupies a marginal place in the political field of this French territory. This chapter seeks to explain why arguing for the particular colonial situation of the territory and the demography of the Indigenous population has led them to pursue dual strategies towards self-determination.
New Caledonia has been under French tutelage from 1853. From the early-twentieth-century local parties have sought increasing autonomy, and some, mainly indigenous Kanaks, independence, culminating in a civil war in the 1980s. The 1988 Matignon-Oudinot Accords ended the violence and, together with the 1998 Nouméa Accord, delayed a promised independence referendum by 30 years, in return for increased autonomy with scheduled handovers of certain responsibilities by France, and more equitable distribution of nickel returns, in a common destiny across communities. The final, self-determination phase of these agreements is now formally complete, with three independence referendums held in 2018, 2020, and 2021. The first two votes, returning a slim and narrowing majority for staying with France, revealed the continuing deep ethnic divide over independence. A call for nonparticipation by indigenous leaders, after the devastating effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on their communities, widely heeded, effectively nullified the political effect of the final December 2021 vote, again favouring staying with France. Independence leaders are now calling for another vote. This paper reviews the historical context, the next steps, and key issues in the ongoing self-determination process, including issues engaging important geostrategic interests for France and, briefly, some implications for the South Pacific region.
