The geopolitical ecology of New Caledonia: territorial re-ordering, mining, and Indigenous economic development

Abstract

<jats:p>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</jats:p>

Conflict of Interest in the Expansion of Sofifi City in North Maluku, Indonesia

“…Some of these studies show that elite political conflict contributed to many of the triggers for the conflict in North Maluku. This event bears similarities to the case in Spain of dissatisfaction with central government intervention, which had formed a regional identity that led to demands for independence (Batterbury et al, 2020).…”

“…If achievement has been going down, then aspirations will go down, too. Batterbury, Kowasch, & Bouard (2020) say that the need for power, respect, and money are all things that can cause conflict. Economic needs are basic needs that cannot be separated from resources (Guan, Kirikkaleli, Bibi, & Zhang, 2020).…”

Waste colonialism and metabolic flows in island territories

“…In 1853 it was officially annexed by the French, who made it a penal colony and gradually evicted the Kanak populations from the cultivable land of the main island. The discovery of nickel in 1864 "set the scene for further 'accumulation by dispossession', elevating the island's geopolitical importance" (Batterbury et al, 2020). Nickel mining and processing was initially provided by French capital, before opening to outside capital and labor during the twentieth century.…”

“…The GDP per capita (US$34,932 in 2019) is partly the result of transfers from metropolitan France (about 17% of GNP) and nickel mining, which in 2017 accounted for up to 7% of total GDP (Ris et al, 2017). Control over this strategic resource is central to the political power struggles surrounding the status of this territory and its decolonization (Batterbury et al, 2020;Demmer, 2017). Tourism is a marginal activity, while the exceptional environmental and marine wealth (the lagoon is a UNESCO World Heritage Site) is a factor of both attraction and fragility, especially considering the heavy environmental impact of nickel mining.…”

Embedded Bordering

“…Bordering technologies themselves are sometimes mobilized for such resistance, such the creation of passports by the Aboriginal Provisional Government in Australia (Mansell, 2017) or the longstanding tradition of First Nations using physical checkpoints on roadways into and through their territory (Midzain-Gobin, 2019). In this way, certain bordering practices and technologies can be understood at once as both an attempt by the colonial state to reconcile the contradictions of settler state sovereignty while also being generative of spaces for contention and resistance (Klein and Kothari, 2020; see also Müller, 2020 andBatterbury, Kowasch andBouard, 2020).…”