ASIA_NEWS: seminar, '...post-colonial New Caledonia'

[Greg Young]

From: "Oanh" <collins at coombs.anu.edu.au>
About: PAH & SSGM Seminar - Thursday 22/11/01

Research School of Pacific & Asian Studies
Division of Pacific & Asian History


12:30-2:00pm in Seminar Room C, Coombs Building

Thursday 22 November 2001
Caroline Graille - PAH Visitor (SSGM Project)

"RAINBOW NATIONS" IN THE PACIFIC: MULTI-CULTURALISM AND THE
REIFICATION OF DIFFERENCES IN POST-COLONIAL NEW CALEDONIA.

ABSTRACT:

After the Noumea Accord of 1998, the French Territory of New
Caledonia, whose political parties represented mainly pro-French
loyalists and Kanak nationalists, became engaged in a very long and
adventurous process towards a hypothetical "New Caledonian
independence and citizenship", through "greater autonomy". This
process of nation-making is based on the hope for reconciliation
between indigenous and non-indigenous populations (mainly the
colonized Melanesians and the French colonizers) and a bright future
for all populations in a multi-cultural social environment.

The reality is slightly different in this country where social and
cultural "metissage" (intermixing) has always been denied, with a high
degree of separation maintained between the different ethnic groups.
Furthermore, the last fifteen years have seen the acknowledgement and
enhancing of the indigenous Kanak culture (including the creation of a
special agency dedicated to its development now located in the
recently opened Tjibaou Cultural Centre). In response, the local
"Caldoches" (those Europeans who were born in New Caledonia) are
vigorously trying to emphasize their own cultural references in order
to counter-balance this indigenous "revival".

This paper explores the paradox of multi-culturalism in a country that
still has to deal with both its colonial past and a decolonization
process seen as largely uncompleted. It emphasizes how today's
material culture in New Caledonia actually highlights differences and
boundaries, rather than commonalities, between indigenous and
non-indigenous people.
 
Enquiries - Divisional Office, ext. 53106




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