La souveraineté dans les pays d`Océanie : Le cas des territoires

Séminaire international
« La souveraineté dans les pays d’Océanie :
Le cas des territoires francophones »
Le lundi 14 Décembre 2015 au Centre des Nouvelles Etudes sur le Pacifique,
Université de la Nouvelle-Calédonie (Département LLSH, salle L40)
Ce séminaire, organisé par le Centre des Nouvelles Etudes sur le Pacifique, s’inscrit dans le cadre
du projet de recherche « Aide et Souveraineté dans les pays du Pacifique » mené par le
professeur John Overton (Université de Victoria, NZ) avec Warwick Murray (Université de
Victoria, NZ), Gerard Prinsen (Université de Massey, NZ) ainsi qu’un certain nombre d’autres
chercheurs de la région et en particulier en Nouvelle-Calédonie : Séverine Blaise (UNC-CNEP),
Pierre-Yves le Meur (IRD), Hamid Mokaddem (IFMNC, CNEP) et Allisson Lotti (CNEP). Il s’agit de
réunir plusieurs chercheurs de la région spécialistes des questions liées à la souveraineté afin
d’échanger sur le cas spécifique des territoires du Pacifique francophone.
Ce séminaire, ouvert au public, entend laisser une large place aux échanges (40 minutes), sur la
base d’une courte présentation (20 minutes) du travail de chaque chercheur sur ces
problématiques. Ces échanges feront l’objet d’un enregistrement audio que chaque
communicant pourra conserver. Les autres participants acceptent implicitement que leur
propos soit enregistré, et ceci strictement à des fins de recherche.
Participants :
Séverine Blaise (UNC-CNEP, Nouméa, Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Pierre-Yves Le Meur (IRD, Nouméa, Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Claire Levacher (IRD, Nouméa, Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Allison Lotti (CNEP, Lifou, Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Alexander Mawyer (Center for Pacific Islands Studies, University of Hawai‘I at Manoa, U.S)
Hamid Mokaddem (IFMNC, CNEP, Nouméa, Nouvelle-Calédonie)
Warwick Murray (Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand)
John Overton (Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand)
Gerard Prinsen (Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand)
Elisabeth Worliczek (University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, en visioconf.)
Programme
08h00 Accueil des participants en salle L40 (département LLSH)
08h15 : Pierre-Yves le Meur et Claire Levacher (IRD)
Mining and competing sovereignties in New Caledonia
New Caledonia, a French settler colony and now overseas territory, has been engaged in a process
of negotiated decolonization that started with the political agreements of Matignon-Oudinot
(1988) and Noumea (1998). The Noumea accord tackles the sovereignty issue in its preamble and
equates it oddly enough with the identity issue (preamble, paragraph 4). It also develops the
objective of shared sovereignty based on the restitution of a confiscated Kanak identity and on the
recognition of its inherent sovereignty. Within this process, the mining issue came to the
foreground in the mid-1990s as an economic means for political emancipation. Kanak proindependence parties developed a form of resource nationalism currently known as the ‘doctrine
nickel’ and enacted through an active involvement in the mining sector through policy, law and
equity. However the historical and political diversity of mining sites and projects has been
generating local configurations and arenas that greatly differ in terms of actors, discourses and
relationships. Discourses of sovereignty are themselves plural, mobilizing different local and
exogenous discursive and normative repertoires. The comparative exploration of different mining
sites (mainly Yaté/Vale, Thio/SLN and VKP/KNS, via 2 research programs on “mining
governance” and “mining and the value of place” funded by CNRT “Nickel and its environment”
and Claire Levacher’s doctoral program on “indigenous right and mining governance in South
New Caledonia”) will mobilize and enrich Richard Joyce’s proposals about “competing
sovereignties” and his triangular model linking sovereignty, community and law.
09h15 : Alexander Mawyer (Univ. of Hawai‘i)
Lagoons, Languages, and Legal Regimes: Micro-Sovereignties in French Polynesia
With reference to the Gambier and Society Islands in French Polynesia, this presentation
examines the lived experience of sovereignty across several dimensions of daily life in one part of
the French Pacific. I explore how the question, issue, or presence of sovereignty emerges and
sometimes erupts into the present across in the politics of language, marine resource use and
management, and regional courtrooms. Drawing concrete ethnographic attention to these three
material contexts suggests that even within a profoundly shared political context of the French
Polynesian state, Mangarevans, the people of French Polynesia’s Gambier Islands, and Tahitians
encounter, confront, and negotiate their relationships with issues and experiences of sovereignty
in ways that are sometimes parallel and sometimes divergent. Examples are used to explore
intersections with literature elsewhere (eg Okinawa) on “residual sovereignty” and to initiate a
conversation on the relevance of a concept of micro-sovereignty to some Pacific Islands state
contexts.
10h15 : Pause-café
10h45 : John Overton (Victoria Univ.) & Warwick Murray (Victoria Univ.),
Moving triangles: Aid, migration, education and retroliberalism in Oceania
Changing donor aid regimes have significantly affected development trajectories across Oceania.
Aid levels are highly unequal and have been used to steer development in different directions, as
with the recent move from poverty-related efforts in education and health towards more
infrastructural and market-led approaches. In addition different Pacific Island countries face quite
different opportunities for migration. This paper examines this skewed geography of aid and
development in the region. It questions the relevance and efficacy of new 'retroliberal' aid
regimes and focuses on the way education and migration may or may not align with local
development aspirations, strategies and agencies.
12h00-13h15 : Pause déjeuner
13h30 Accueil des participants en salle des conseils (administration)
13h45 : Gerard Prinsen (Massey Univ.), Severine Blaise (UNC-CNEP)
An emerging ‘Islandian’ Sovereignty of Non-self-governing Islands
Comparative analyses find non-self-governing islands have better development indicators than
sovereign islands. Unsurprisingly, since 1983, no non-self-governing island has sought political
independence. However, rather than merely maintaining the status quo, this paper argues nonself-governing islands are actively creating a new form of sovereignty. Conceptually, the creation
of this ‘Islandian’ sovereignty takes place against the backdrop of debates around the relevance
and validity of classic Westphalian sovereignty and emerging practices of Indigenous sovereignty.
Reviewing global research and taking New Caledonia’s negotiations with France as an exemplary
case study, this paper identifies five global patterns that may characterize an emerging ‘Islandian’
sovereignty.
14h45 : Hamid Mokaddem (IFMNC, CNEP)
What does it mean a “Shared Sovereignty” to day in New Caledonia?
This paper try to explain the actual political system which is actually organized in New Caledonia
by France, more peculiar, by the power and political technology of French State. Today a « shared
Sovereignty » between France and New Caledonian is in process. By the name of New Caledonia,
France includes Kanak People and the others communities issued by French colonization since
XIXth century. Nobody except a few people knows exactly what does it mean a kanak conception
of Sovereignty. France argues that the Kanak People was recognized since 1998, date of the
Noumea Agreement. But firstly, Kanaky, the name of Kanak Statis or Nationhood is considered
like an outstanding notion by France. And secondly, there is no analysis concerning the
relationship between Caledonians communities, Kanak People and French People. Where is the
place today in New Caledonia for Kanaky ? For giving a clear answer to this question, we need to
do an anthropological analysis to clarify the meaning of the relationship between these three
names : Kanaky, New Caledonia and France. In other words, could indigenous people, caledonian
communities and french people built together one and single People in one Nation ? What does it
mean exactly a « shared Sovereignty » in New Caledonia ?
15h45 : Pause-café
16h15 : Allison Lotti (CNEP), Gerard Prinsen (Massey Univ.), John Overton (Victoria
Univ.), Elisabeth Worliczek (Univ. of NRLS)
Inter-island rivalry
There is ample research suggesting islands are developing distinct ways to shape their relations
with the world and their (neo-) colonial metropoles. Islands have “a different appetite for
sovereignty” (Baldacchino & Hepburn, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 50(4), 555).
However, most research into the sovereignty of islands seems to treat groups of islands as a single
entity, calling them twin islands, or sibling islands. Irrespective of their political status, we talk of
Trinidad & Tobago as if they were one; we refer to the Wallis & Futuna as if they were one; we
discuss the Dutch Antilles as if they were one. Perhaps this still reflects the perspective of
outsiders. Most Tobagonians feel they have little in common with Trinidadians; Arubans obtained
a ‘status aparte’ in the Dutch Antilles because they want to keep their distance from Curaçao, and
in September 2015, Futuna’s Customary Council leaders demanded from the French
administration, “a more equitable relation between the two islands or we leave the republic”. The
rivalry within island groups and its impact on these islands’ sovereignty is perhaps a poorly
understood dynamic.
The authors of this presentation will outline the preliminary features of a research designed to
investigate inter-island rivalry within island groups in Oceania and in the Caribbean. Gerard will
sketch the background and methodology and Allison will share some of the first findings from
interviews she did on Wallis and on Futuna in August.