La critique est aisée, mais l’art est difficile. A critical anthropology put to the test of decolonization: Lessons from New Caledonia

Abstract

This article focuses on anthropologists’ analyses of decolonization struggles in relationship to past and present movements for self-determination. We begin by highlighting the relevance of Georges Balandier's model of the “colonial situation” for the understanding of these struggles. Next, we show that, as Pierre Bourdieu, following Balandier, suggested, the analysis of these struggles cannot forego an analysis of the position of the researchers themselves in the situation. This brings to light the difficulty of constructing one's “atopic position” as a researcher in decolonization processes. We aim to show that the theoretical precepts which anthropologists adopt (and the precepts’ moral underpinnings) lead them to minimize or overlook the political aspects of decolonization processes. This involves a certain blindness to the concrete conditions—economic, social, and political—that have led to the situation in question. We explore in detail the example of “critical” analyses of the “Kanak People's School System” (École populaire kanak, EPK)—a nationalist Kanak project, aimed at decolonizing the New Caledonia school system in the mid-1980s. We also briefly look at “critical” interpretations of a recent initiative undertaken by a segment of the Kanak population involving the establishment of a written “customary law” in civil (and potentially criminal) matters, which tends to distance itself from the nationalist strategy.