POSTCOLONIAL POLITICS AND COLONIAL MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS IN NEW CALEDONIA

Authors

Alaine Chanter, University of CanberraFollow

Abstract

The signing in 1998 of the Noumea Agreement on the political future of New Caledonia was of great significance in conferring a limited form of nationhood on New Caledonia prior to a vote on independence in fifteen to twenty years' time. The agreement itself argues that the emergence of a " new sovereignty" requires affirmation of the formative place of Kanak identity and culture in the society. This requirement is particularly apparent within the European community, which has based its opposition to independence on a denigration of Kanak claims to an affirmative identity and peoplehood. This article interrogates whether there are signs that such a valuing of Kanak identity and culture is emerging within this community by analyzing the discourses on Kanak identity and culture in the territory's most influential mouthpiece: the daily newspaper Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes. I argue that the discourses, though changing, still evince considerable racism and therefore augur badly for the prospects of a genuinely postcolonial future.

Recommended Citation

Chanter, Alaine (2002) "POSTCOLONIAL POLITICS AND COLONIAL MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS IN NEW CALEDONIA," Pacific Studies Journal: Vol. 25: No. 2, Article 2.
Available at: https://digitalcollections.byuh.edu/pacific-studies-journal/vol25/iss2/2