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Becoming Caledonian? Political Discourses around national identity in New Caledonia from ‘The Events’ in the 80s to now. (Honours Dissertartion 2019)
Abstract
New Caledonia is currently going through a period of political changes. With its dependence from France to be voted on in the upcoming second self-determination referendum happening in mid-year 2020, New Caledonia‘s future is unpredictable. New Caledonia has a complex colonial past, and its future does not look simpler. Colonised by the French in the 19th century, New Caledonia has been going through many periods of conflicts between Kanak often wanting independence (called independentists) and French wanting to stay with France (called loyalists). With the peak of conflicts happening during the period of The Events and the Accords of Matignon (1988) and Nouméa (1998) leading to the current period of referendums, New Caledonia’s politics has been divided over what the future of the territory should look like. With the issue of political sovereignty being at the heart of current New Caledonia’s politics, the question is being asked whether the territory is a region of France or a nation-state. Either way, political parties need to appeal to the community to support their position on what is New Caledonia and what it should look like in the future. By focusing on three major theories of national identity’s construction with Anderson, Billig and Smith as well as the concept of settler national identity by Vercacini, this dissertation will analyse political discourses from politicians in New Caledonia. Looking at the political conversations of two memorable political leaders from the past, Tjibaou and Lafleur, as well as the vision of three current political parties, the UC-FLNKS, L’Avenir en Confiance and Generation.nc, this dissertation will explain three different views when it comes to discussing national identity in New Caledonia.
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I argue first that there are many different concepts of the nation, and advocate a certain conceptual pluralism. I also argue that a population as a whole cannot constitute a nation unless it has a certain national consciousness. I then show that we must adopt a fundamental principle of tolerance. I also try to attend to the complexities of the relations between Quebec and Canada, and argue that different populations represent themselves as nations in different ways and with different concepts. 1 show that Quebec constitutes a nation within a nation. I then wonder what it would mean for Canadians to accept a Quebec nation. Finally, I try to explain why a very large proportion of the population of Quebec has increasingly been favourable to sovereignty, and favourable to making a partnership proposal to Canada.
On 4 November 2018, more than 141,000 voters in New Caledonia went to the polls to determine the political status of the French Pacific dependency. A referendum on self-determination, the culmination of a 20-year transition under the 1998 Noumea Accord, posed the question: ‘Do you want New Caledonia to accede to full sovereignty and become independent?’
In an unprecedented turnout, 56.67 per cent of voters decided to remain within the French Republic, while 43.33 per cent voted Yes for independence. These figures, with a clear majority opposing full sovereignty, suggest a setback for New Caledonia's independence coalition Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS). In reality, the size of the Yes vote has disappointed partisans of the French Republic and opened the way for a second referendum in 2020.
After briefly outlining the 1998 Noumea Accord, the article details the results and participation rates in the November 2018 vote. It then focuses on different aspects of the referendum campaign, including: the role of opinion polling, administration of the referendum by the French state; disputes over electoral registration; international monitoring; key objectives of the anti-independence parties; grassroots campaigning by the FLNKS and the significance of the youth vote. It flags some issues in the aftermath of the referendum, as New Caledonians prepare for the next local elections to be held on 12 May 2019.
version revue et augmentée de celle publiée dans le JSO 117 de 2003
This collection of eminent international authors assembles contributions from anthropology, geography, history and literary studies. The combination of diverse methods and theoretical approaches establishes the ways that land and nature constitute disputed territories in the mind, as well as material resources subject to pragmatic negotiations.
Since 1988, New Caledonia, a sui generis French territory in the Pacific, has experienced increasing autonomy in preparation for a vote on full sovereignty. Beginning in 2018, a series of up to three referenda will determine the future of this archipelago. Although New Caledonians have benefited from ongoing association with France and indigenous Kanak have garnered greater political representation, significant inequalities among ethnic communities persist. Pro-independence Kanak nationalists push for greater political control through a frozen referendum electorate to rebalance indigenous power lost during colonization. At the same time, anti-independence loyalists resent some of the special rights gained by the Kanak because of the decolonization process. The ability and right to express self-determination by voting on the upcoming referendum on sovereignty and defining a new citizenship is intimately tied to issues of inequality and the independence debate. Building on the conceptual framework associated with islandian sovereignty, this paper examines how the rebalancing discourse is a product of internal inequalities that challenge the benefits of subnational island jurisdiction (SNIJ) status. A closer examination of political narratives surrounding the sovereignty debate offers insight into how New Caledonian politicians are using electoral categories, voter eligibility and citizenship to rebalance inequalities.
'Imagined Communities' examines the creation & function of the 'imagined communities' of nationality & the way these communities were in part created by the growth of the nation-state, the interaction between capitalism & printing & the birth of vernacular languages in early modern Europe.
New Caledonia is an island territory located in the French South Pacific. In 2018, the first of three referenda on the island’s sovereignty will occur. Over the next decade, inhabitants of this territory will decide whether to become fully sovereign, maintain their dependence on France, or enter into an independent-association relationship with another state. Through a series of interviews with prominent New Caledonian politicians and secondary sources, this article explores how definitions of victimhood and national identity construction shape the notion of rebalancing. Both loyalist and nationalist politicians argue that the current social inequalities between New Caledonian communities require targeted policies intended to re-balance the populations. Politicians use these victim narratives and national identities to construct imagined communities that advocate for the inclusive or exclusive application of the right to self-determination.
In French Polynesia and New Caledonia, the “indigenous strategy” in reference to the world indigenous movement and UN indigenous rights instruments is a relatively new one in the struggle to recover sovereignty. Individuals and volunteer associations only began to explore the possibilities of this strategy in the mid- 1990s, and it continues to hold a marginal place in the political field of the French territories in Oceania. This article explores how indigeneity and indigenous rights are understood and enacted locally, drawing on local voices and actions within a local and national context. It shows how the framework for the struggles of the indigenous peoples in the French territories in Oceania differs radically from those of other peoples who have been seen as emblematic of the category “indigenous peoples”.
During 1917-1918, war ravaged the hill country north of New Caledonia's main island, the Grande terre. Occurring sixty-four years after France's 1853 annexation of New Caledonia and in the midst of the Great War of 1914-1918, the conflict was known by the mid-twentieth century as "the last of the kanak revolts." It represented to many-until the "events" of the 1980s-the final pacification of Kanak (the indigenous people of New Caledonia). Specters of Violence in a Colonial Context is the first comprehensive history of the 1917-1918 war, which involved the French army, European settlers, and Kanak. In three parts, it addresses the events leading to the outbreak of war, how those involved explained their role in the fighting, and how the war has since been represented. It explores the dynamics of fear, violence, and warfare in a colonial setting that was both European and Melanesian in character. In the face of a colonial historiography and memory that has downplayed consistently the war's significance, this history ultimately reevaluates the causes and scale of the war while explaining the local contexts in which decisions were taken by the various protagonists. The author draws on a rich and largely unexploited colonial archive that includes administrative dossiers detailing the repression, the correspondence of missionaries and indigenous Protestant teachers living in the region, the records of the judicial investigation that followed the war, and the reports on the post-war trial of seventy-eight "rebels." Specters of Violence in a Colonial Context will be warmly received by researchers and students of Pacific history and anthropology. Its broader audience will include those interested in the reverberations of World War I in the colonies and the nature of colonial/colonized interaction. 10 illus.
The quest for identity of Caldoches in New Caledonia
How do Caldoches, in their subjective sense of belonging, manage to appropriate a variety of identities and images of their group, and the tensions they reveal or raise? The article analyzes the multiplicity of forms of belonging : opposition to Metropolitans and proximity with the Kanak world -these many self-identifications processes being caught between the assessement of a singularity and the construction of a common country.
In this paper, we argue that beyond understanding nations as imagined communities, the metaphor of an ‘imagined family’ or ‘filial community’ is a more useful concept towards understanding links between gender and nationhood as family relations in four ways: (1) providing a clear, hierarchical structure; (2) prescribing social roles and responsibilities; (3) being linked to positive affective connotations; and (4) reifying social phenomena as biologically determined. In order to empirically substantiate our claim, we will explore the prevalence and use of family metaphors in a key symbol of nationhood discourses. Through a qualitative analysis of national anthems as ‘mnemonics of national identity’, we demonstrate the widespread presence of family metaphors, discussing how they reproduce ideas of family and gender. Finally, we discuss how the ‘imagined family’ as present in anthems and other forms of national representation could inform future studies of nationalism and national politics.
After the institutional immobilism of the colonial period, New Caledonia has tested about ten statutes since 1946 and seems to have found a certain statutory stability since the Matignon Accord. Beyond these evolutions, there is a certain stability in the institutional relations and policy between the French State and New Caledonia.
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