Narratives of Kanak Identity As an Articulated Ensemble: Synchronic Approach and Diachronic Aim

People and Culture in Oceania, 33: 37-72, 2017

New Caledonia: Narratives of Kanak Identity as an Articulated Ensemble: Synchronic Approach and Diachronic Aim

Junko Edo*

The characteristic of the Kanak decolonization movement in New Caledonia lies in the revendication de l’identité kanak (demand for Kanak identity) as the recovery of rights of indigenous people. As identity is process, my main purpose is to see diachronically how Kanaks claimed their indigenous identity and struggled to recover their rights via their decolonization movement, and how they have achieved rights as a result of the struggle. As identity is multiple, the problematic of this diachronic aim is that it has to take a synchronic approach as methodology: in the relation between identity and discourse, Kanak identity is inseparably linked to the dimensions of nation, culture, and community as an articulated ensemble. Therefore, after theoretically introducing the synchronic approach, in the diachronic aim the paper represents the revendication de l’identité kanak from a macro-viewpoint, while demonstrating how the above 3 are interwoven as the ensemble through discourses of the people.

Keywords: revendication de l’identité kanak, discourse, articulation, indigeneity, indigenous rights, autochtone (autochthone), narrative

1. Introduction

As the map shows, New Caledonia is presently composed of the North Province (16 communes), the South Province (13) on the Grande Terre (literally big land), and the Loyalty Islands Province (3). Settled by Austronesian-speaking people from Southeast Asia about 4,000 years ago and annexed by France in 1853, it is a multi-ethnic society: as shown in the population tables, indigenous Melanesians, now called “Kanak,” presently make up about 40% of the total population of 245,580; Europeans, including descendants of settlers, called “caldoches,” 29%; Pacific Islanders 12%; Asians 3%; and others 16% (Institut de la Statistique et des Études Économiques Nouvelle-Calédonie [INSEE-ISEE], 2012 ). The decolonization movement began at the end of the 1960s, led by Melanesian students in France who had experienced the événements de Mai (events of May 1968) and paradoxically adopted “Canaque” (now “Kanak”), the derogatory term for indigenous people, as the symbol of

* Retired: Formerly affiliated with the Faculty of Foreign Studies, Kyorin University, Tokyo. [e-mail: [email protected]] 38 J. Edo

North Province Loyalty Islands Province

Annual growth 1996-2009 decrease South Province (between 0% and -2%) slight increase (between 0% and 1%) middling increase (between 1% and 3%) large increase (between 3% and 6%)

Map 1. Map of New Caledonia: Province and Communes (INSEE-ISEE, 2012)

Table 1. Population Changes by Ethnic Community (INSEE-ISEE, 2012) 1963 1969 1976 1983 1989 1996 2009 Kanak 41,190 46,200 55,598 61,870 73,598 86,788 99,078 European 33,355 41,268 50,757 53,974 55,085 67,151 71,721 Wallisian, Futunan －－ 9,571 12,174 14,186 17,763 21,262 Tahitian －－ 6,391 5,570 4,750 5,171 4,985 Indonesian －－ 5,111 5,319 5,191 5,003 3,985 Vietnamese －－ 1,943 2,381 2,461 2,822 2,357 Ni-Vanuatu －－ 1,050 1,212 1,683 2,244 2,327 Others 11,974 13,111 2,812 2,868 7,219 9,894 39,865 Total 86,519 100,579 133,233 145,368 164,173 196,836 245,580

Table 2. Population by Province in Relation to Ethnic Communities (2009) (INSEE-ISEE, 2012) Wallisian, Ni- Kanak European Tahitian Indonesian Vietnamese Others Total Futunan Vanuatu Loyalty Islands 16,847 341 25 14 7 1 13 188 17,266 Province North Province 33,312 5,753 336 247 445 44 132 4,868 39,700 South Province 48,919 65,627 20,901 4,724 3,533 2,312 2,182 34,809 161,115 New Caledonia 99,078 71,721 21,262 4,985 3,985 2,357 2,327 39,865 245,580 % 40 29 9 2 2 1 1 16 100 Narratives of Kanak Identity as an Articulated Ensemble 39 their identity. As this is followed by the revendication de l’identité kanak (Kanak identity claim), I see that the characteristics of the Kanak decolonization movement lie in this identity claim as the recovery of their rights. Therefore, I conducted research on the struggle for Kanak identity over many years by interviewing and collecting discourses of local people, including Kanak and Caledonians. This is because identity does not exist as a real entity, but is imagined in the minds of people, uttered by their voices and asserted in discursive practices. In order to conclude the research theme, I published a book in Japanese on narratives of Kanak identity (title in English: Kanak Identity in New Caledonia-Narratives of Nation, Community and Culture, Edo, 2015). This work was based on analysis of the discourses, recorded mainly in the late 1990s and the late 2000s in my fieldwork1 and transcribed as text. As identity is process, the main purpose of the book is to view diachronically how Kanaks claim their indigenous identity and struggle to recover their rights via their decolonization movement, and how they achieved the rights during the periods of the Matignon Accords and the present Nouméa Accord. The problematic of this diachronic aim, however, is that it has to take a synchronic approach as methodology, because in the relation between identity and discourse, Kanak identity is inseparably tied to the dimensions of nation, culture, and community. This was the fact immediately found at the very beginning of the fieldwork: when I questioned people in an unspecified way about “Kanak identity,” people began talking about identity based on clan at the community level, even though it emerged at an ethnicity level. I was reminded of the fact that their forebears lived on this land long before they were called Kanaks, and that what is more real to them is the community identity they share in living. However, when asked about Kanak identity vis-à-vis other ethnic communities, they talked about their culture as cultural identity on the ethnicity level, and when asked about it politically, referring to the revendication de l’identité kanak, they talked about the claim for rights of indigenous people in the context of independence, seeking a nation at the national level. As if unraveling tangled threads multi-dimensionally, I started tackling Kanak identity with key terms as clues to decode their identity struggle. Thus, my research was guided by their discursive practices while pursuing topics of Kanak identity dispersed in their discourses. Therefore, the book is a representation of narratives of Kanak Identity as an articulated ensemble of narratives of nation, culture, and community. Since there seems to be no narrative of Kanak identity interwoven diachronically and synchronically,2 it is a new, voluminous (660 pages in Japanese) representation.

1 My fieldwork on Kanak identity totals 7 periods in 1996-1998 and 2004-2007. If my initial fieldwork in 1986 and the second in 1991 are included, the number of interviewees reaches nearly 100 and that of interviews totals nearly 170. 2 Those written on Kanak identity can be found, such as Tjibaou, 1996, 2005; Bensa, 1990, 1995; and Leblic, 2007. 40 J. Edo

As an attempt to give a partial glimpse of the book, first this paper theoretically introduces the synchronic approach, and second, it diachronically aims to elucidate the axis of the revendication de l’identité kanak as a historical struggle for indigenous rights. It then demonstrates how discourses of the people3 are interwoven as an ensemble in synchronic and diachronic contexts.

2. Synchronic Approach

2.1 Identity and Discourse Identity is a Western term, the concept of which originates from the Cartesian subject as cogito ergo sum (“I think, therefore I am”). “Who am I?” is the basic and ontological question of identifying one’s entity. If the western tradition of identity treats the subject as a discrete individual, post-structuralists seek to deconstruct the subject and post-modernists’ analysis sees the subject as taking different intersubjective positions. This is akin to the traditional Oceanic view of identity. As Leenhardt describes Kanak personhood in Do Kamo, the self, located according to one’s position as a member of a kin group, is pluralistic by changing its identity in relation to others (Leenhardt, 1979: 153-156). A Kanak high school teacher describes how his individual identity is traditionally defined: “I am obliged to define myself in relation to my clan, in relation to the chiefdoms and other clans...Identity is the subject of us and not the subject of me” (October 1997). His way of identifying defines the subject of identity as not in the individual but the collective, and demonstrates that the clan and chiefdoms play a preponderant role in locating one’s identity according to hierarchical relations. That is, Kanak traditional identity on the community level lies in the clan through paternal descent from a common ancestor and the place from which the clan originates. The pluralistic self, by changing according to relationships with others, suggests that their episteme is to conceive of the world holistically in the web of relations. This recalls the Tylorean concept of culture as a “complex whole,” which corresponds to custom as the total way of indigenous life. In fact, a customary authority says that “Kanak identity is all-embracing...it is the style of collective life, coutume (custom)…the approach of Kanak is always holistic” (August 2007). He also comments, “The French human right is the right of only one person for a community” (September 2005). This shows that their claim to identity and rights is holistic and made in terms of the collectivity with the priority of the group over the individual. Discourses on Kanak identity are rooted in such a conception of community and episteme. For Foucault, who is interested in discursive practice as the act of representation rather

3 In this paper, discourse ranges from verbal speeches to published written texts. Discourses of people interviewed are marked by month and year in parentheses: for example (October 1998). The names of the interviewees are in general not disclosed in order to protect their privacy. Narratives of Kanak Identity as an Articulated Ensemble 41 than that of language, “discourse” means the system of discursive relations and formation, which represents the knowledge of a specific topic in its historicity. These discursive relations offer and establish objects to speak of in utterance or discourses, wherein certain concepts, relations, and rules are seen. Therefore, the ensemble of such discourses belongs to the same system of discursive formation (Foucault, 1972: 44-46; Hall, 2001: 72-73). In such discursive practice, there are 2 kinds of subjects: one is the speaking subject and the other is the spoken subject objectified in the former’s discourse. Foucault decentralizes the speaking subject in that “I” as “I speak” becomes distant, disperses, and disappears, and that discourse does not show off the former but its dispersion and discontinuity on different levels of which he speaks, articulated by a system of discursive relations (Foucault, 1972: 54 － 55, 1994a: 148-149). His analysis of discourse corresponds to what I experienced in my fieldwork. I explored how local people represent the given topic in their discourses made through the interplay of discursive acts between myself. In this practice, various spoken subjects are referred to, objectified as propositions, and signified in a given context. Although their discourses can be situated in political, cultural, and community dimensions, in real discursive practice people do not necessarily talk about topics differentiating the level of nation or of ethnicity or of community consciously. They rather try to relate to each other, or shift from one level to another freely or conveniently in the flow of their discourse, reminiscent of their total way of seeing things in the web of relations. In other words, if object A obtains a subject position in discursive practice, A articulates these different dimensions or levels and forms its discursive relations as the spoken subject. Also, if another interesting object B emerges, the subject position shifts from A to B, even sometimes without being realized as change. In other words, both the spoken subject and speaking subject are decentralized and subordinated to the flow of discourses. As the subjects disperse on different dimensions and levels in discursive practice, they are articulated in the system of discursive formation. Stuart Hall, focusing his attention on Foucault’s analysis of the subject in relation to discourse, refers to identity as the suturing point of one speaking and addressing “us into place as the social subjects of particular discourse, the processes of which produce subjectivities.” As identity is constructed within discourse, it is “the result of successful articulation or ‘chaining’ of the subject into the flow of the discourse” (Hall, 1996: 4-6). In other words, identity is inseparably related to discourses. If we think of Kanak identity, it is represented in their discursive practices by the attachment of such subject positions. Foucault also relates knowledge of a specific topic transmitted in discourses to “power,” a term which designates play relationships between “partners” on the level of individuals or groups. Such power relationships produce a productive network through which discourses and knowledge circulate with individuals as the vehicles of power. The network is the system to regulate, distribute, 42 J. Edo circulate, and operate statements or discourses as knowledge/power, with which “truth” is linked in a circular relation. In other words, discursive practice sustains the “regime of truth” of what is seen as “true,” since the network of knowledge/power enmeshes society (Foucault, 1980: 98, 1994b: 131-132). In the revendication de l’identité kanak, while the role of the individuals as the vehicles of power is mainly performed by Kanak leaders and intellectuals who led the decolonization movement, what constructs and sustains the regime of truth as the knowledge/power of Kanak identity, however, is not these speaking subjects but their discursive practice. As discursive practice is signifying practice, codifying terms such as revendication de l’identité kanak (kanak identity claim), coutume (custom), autochtones (autochthonous people), accueil des étrangers (welcome of foreigners), etc. circulate while manifesting concepts and rules and making discursive relations and formation. In short, as the regime of truth, indigeneity is constructed and circulated as the knowledge/power of Kanak identity.

2.2 Representation and Articulation If discursive practice means the act of representation, how can we interpret representation? According to Hall, “representation connects meaning and language to culture”—in a broader sense, using language to express something meaningful to others. But the essential part is “the process by which meaning is produced and exchanged between members of a culture” for the purpose of signifying their world to other people (Hall, 1997: 15). Whether this signifying practice is of one’s own culture or the culture of others, however, representation is placed in a different context. Concerning the former, Pratt refers to ethnographic text made by local people as “autoethnography” or “autoethnographic expression.” It is the response to the representation of the text by the colonizer or dialogue with the latter, especially seen in the contact zone. Although their representation is taken as the authentic or the self-representation by the indigenous, as the colonized appropriates the idioms of the colonizer, it is often bilingual and dialogic and addressed to both social groups (Pratt, 1992: 7, 9). In this sense, discursive practice by Kanak people, who are historically forced to speak in French to French people and Caledonians, can be taken as “autoethnography” or “autoethnographic expression” by using the language of the colonizer. It is signifying practice to represent their world addressing the Kanak, French, and others including the author, by using French idioms and counter-expressions. Those I interviewed ranged from politicians, public officials, school teachers, and customary authorities to ordinary villagers and included both men and women. However, the main speaking subjects can be reduced to the elite or the intellectuals who have accountability, such as the political leaders in the narrative of nation, cultural leaders in that of culture, and customary authorities in that of community. They are those Narratives of Kanak Identity as an Articulated Ensemble 43 whom Foucault refers to as the intellectuals, not as the “bearer of universal values,” but rather “the person occupying a specific position,” who can operate or struggle for “the regime of truth” (Foucault, 1980: 132, 1994b: 131-132). Criticisms by anthropologists of discourse analysis focus on this point. Discriminating between the elite who have power to speak and the ordinary people in villages whom they call the “voiceless voice of the people,” they seem to estrange the former from the latter in the dichotomy of the dominant and the dominated. It is needless to say that the knowledge/power of the speaking subject influences the discursive formation of Kanak identity. However, I saw in fieldwork that both are mutually linked through indigenous webs of relations and cultural perception, and there is feedback between them. The difference between them is that the former possesses the discourse skill of how to represent and chain the spoken subject into the flow of discourse in French, the official and common language for the Kanak. A Kanak official comments: “When you speak a foreign language, it changes your head and concept…This brings in a European concept. But the contradiction is that one becomes conscious of what destabilized one’s concept because what is spoken in French is expressed in our native language differently” (October 1997). In other words, objectifying their indigenous culture in relation to Occidental culture to represent the Kanak world meaningfully through discourse, they are those who can bridge the two worlds and shift their view bilingually and bi-culturally, while making the “regime of truth” function as the vehicle of power. Concerning the latter, Clifford refers to ethnography as “an emergent interdisciplinary phenomenon,” and “hybrid textual activity” crossing “genres and disciplines” and “always writing.” He proposes to write an ethnography “in a discursive paradigm rather than a visual paradigm” through “an interplay of voices, of positioned utterances.” He also points out that to call ethnographies fiction is that “the partiality of cultural and historical truths is the ways they are systematic and exclusive…Ethnographic truths are thus inherently partial—committed and incomplete” (Clifford, 1986: 4, 6-7, 12, 26). In this sense, the narratives of Kanak identity are interdisciplinarily written in a “discursive paradigm” by the author as the final speaking subject. It is to represent the world of the Kanak significantly through the meanings produced and exchanged in the interplay of discursive acts between local people and the author. This textual act has become highly hybrid in the process from fieldwork and research on material sources to the final writing: signifying practices in French discourses are translated into Japanese and English by going through multiple interpretations and viewpoints. Therefore, the narratives of Kanak identity written by such hybrid textual activities in a discursive paradigm are “partial truths.” Clifford sees “indigeneity” dynamically as the articulation of routes and roots, which coincides with Kanak autochthonous identity on the community level as an itinerary of routes and roots. If we 44 J. Edo think that man’s mobility and settlement have been repeated since ancient migration and settlement, this is natural. In this sense, indigeneity consists in routes and roots. Clifford conceives articulation as “the political connecting and disconnecting, the hooking and unhooking of elements” and says that “any socio-cultural ensemble that presents itself to us as a whole is actually a set of historical connections and disconnections.” He sees the “articulated ensemble” as “a cyborg” rather than “an organic model,” since something that is articulated or hooked together can be disarticulated or unhooked (Clifford, 2001: 468-473, 2003: 45, 88). This concept makes it possible to see the formation of Kanak identity structurally and dynamically as an articulated ensemble of 3 narratives (Figure 1). That is, through the process of the decolonization movement, the ensemble is constructed via articulation on these levels (Figure 1). Since the dimensions of nation and culture have newly emerged in the movements, the 2 narratives are routed through each other and through that of community as political and cultural roots. In other words, the construction of Kanak identity as an articulated ensemble makes it possible to see “indigeneity” with routes and roots. However, as articulation is strategically made, the ensemble can be also disarticulated.

Figure 1. Kanak Identity as an Articulated Ensemble

If the ensemble is deconstructed, it can be represented as the above 3 narratives on the Figure: the narrative of a nation is seen as being the search for the identity of a nation as an “imagined political community sharing sovereignty,” since sovereignty lies in the nation within the framework of the nation-state; the narrative of culture is shown as being in search of cultural identity as an “imagined cultural community sharing culture” since culture is seen as the base of the Kanak ethnicity as a people, and the narrative of community is as in search of autochthonous identity Narratives of Kanak Identity as an Articulated Ensemble 45 drawn on an “imagined primordial community sharing custom” since custom is represented as the common denominator of their fragmented society based on the clan. What we should not forget, however, is that these imagined communities are structurally different on 3 levels, while pursuing their respective rights, and that each internally comprises differences and conflicts.

3. Diachronic Aim: Revendication de l’Identité Kanak in Decolonization Movement

Chatterjee criticizes Anderson for applying modular forms of American and European nationalism to Asian and African colonies in Imagined Communities (Anderson, 1991: 113- 141). By saying “our imaginations must remain forever colonized,” he rewrites the formula of nationalism, dividing colonial society into 2 domains, the “spiritual” and the “material”: the former is an “inner domain” bearing the “essential” marks of cultural identity and the sovereign territory where the colonial power cannot enter. The latter is the domain of the “outside” of the economy and of statecraft, science, and technology, where Western skills dominate and are absorbed. He says that the third world formed national identities in the former domain within the narrative of community, while the modern state is embedded in the latter within the universal narrative of capital (Chatterjee, 1993: 3-13, 237-238). Although this division is traditionally seen as a strategic defense of one’s own culture, in reality the inner domain interfaces with the outer domain and the 2 are articulated. Unlike his formula of the 2 narratives as the 2 domains, ours based on discursive practices is presented as the articulated ensemble of triple narratives of nation, culture, and community, as seen before. That is, Kanak claims to identity and rights are politically, culturally, and primordially imagined in articulation of the 3 levels. In order to substantiate the overall structure of the revendication de l’identité kanak as the ensemble, this diachronic aim represents first the historicity as a premise of the Kanak identity struggle, then follows demands for their rights which emerged in the decolonization movement and its results in the period of the Accords in the modern arena. It synchronically interweaves the 3 levels based on discourses of people as signifying practice, while asking, “How is ‘indigeneity’ both rooted in and routed through particular places?” (Clifford, 2001: 469).

3.1 Historicity as Premise of Kanak Identity Struggle “The word Kanak has a politically strong connotation in relation to other ethnic communities. It is the claim which has the notion of historicity and the notion of Kanak legitimacy” (October 1997). So said a Kanak high school teacher, commenting on the revendication de l’identité Kanak. We can see that the term “Kanak” holds the key to the claim. Semantically, colonization played a role in the genesis of “Kanak.” “Kanak,” which originated from “kanaka,” meaning “human beings” 46 J. Edo in the Hawaiian language, is derived from Proto-Polynesian tangata. As the term was spread over the Pacific by Europeans in the 19th century, it became a pejorative designation for islanders. In New Caledonia, Melanesians were first referred to as Calédoniens, then Néo-Calédoniens after the arrival of settlers. While “Kanaka” appeared variously in the 1850s as kanak, kanack, canack and canaque in European writings,4 the last Frenchified orthography became a routine and derogatory term designating Melanesians with such expressions as les sales Canaques (the dirty Canaques). That is, French administrators and settlers used Canaque to discriminate already existing occupants by categorizing them as the “savage native.” What makes the historical and legitimate ground of the Kanak identity claim lies in French colonization. France forcibly colonized New Caledonia (1853) with a military presence to set up a penal colony (1863-1897). By designating Melanesian aggregations as tribu (tribe) (1867) and by establishing reserves (1868), France dispossessed Melanesians of land on a massive scale on the Grande Terre and imposed canntonnement with forcible displacement and confinement. By introducing European convicts and free settlers and later Asian laborers along with nickel mining (1874) as well as Pacific Islanders, colonization demographically marginalized Melanesians. While suppressing their revolts, France deprived Melanesians of their rights by arbitrarily issuing orders and decrees to subjugate them. To control Melanesians, chiefs were given administrative power “which had not been exercised in the traditional framework,” according to a Kanak officer (October 1998). With the application of the Code de l’Indigénat (code of native rules) in 1887, France imposed the Statut de l’Indigénat (indigenous status) and corvée on Melanesians by classifying them apart from the civil status of European settlers. In short, colonization distorted the precolonial scape physically, socio-culturally, and psychologically. While both resisting the colonial power and collaborating with it, Melanesians were obliged to reconstitute their indigenous scape with a transplanted colonial scape. In this sense, coutume, where chiefs work as the pivotal power, is the “invention of tradition,” in which Melanesians continued to secure their primordial domain based on the clan with the image of communion. Narratives of nation and culture are rooted in such imagined primordial community. Kanak sentiments towards France, however, have never been monolithic as love and hatred have been fermented by the long relationship with France. Also, their historical experiences are different between the Grande Terre and the Loyalty Islands (in short the Islands): the former suffered from the heavy impact of colonization while the latter, smaller and poorer in resources and colonized later (1864-1865), were less affected. In terms of religion, on the Grande Terre Christianity came hand in hand with colonization, while on the Islands it was welcomed and became part of custom.

4 According to Hollyman, it was Kana(c)k at first and French Canaque was derived from the feminine form (Hollyman, 1959: 373). Narratives of Kanak Identity as an Articulated Ensemble 47

A loyalist Kanak politician from the Islands says, “Being colonized by France was not totally negative…we are well looked after” (November 1998). This remark may not be so extraordinary if we consider that indigenous allies of France always existed in colonization. No matter how complicated it is in historical reality, the relationship between the colonizers and the colonized is undoubtedly one of power in domination and subordination. Therefore, Tjibaou, the late Kanak political leader of the independence movement from the Grande Terre, referred to colonization as institutionalized violence (Tjibaou, 1996: 213, 2005: 190-191). We see that the revendication de l’identité Kanak emerged from the inner cry of the indigenous people who historically had to endure such institutionalized violence. Therefore, asked about the revendication in general, people refer to regaining “fierté” (pride) or “dignité” (dignity) so as to become “l’homme debout” (the man standing on his own feet). As the institutionalized violence dehumanized them by depriving them of rights, they had to reclaim their identity in terms of the original sense of “Kanaka.” Their identity claim is inseparable from their rights as indigenous people. A preparatory stage for the revendication de l’identité kanak dawned in the postwar period in conjunction with outside elements. France was obliged to abrogate the colonial status and New Caledonia opted in 1958 for that of the overseas territory (Territoire d’Outre-Mer, or T.O.M.). Being liberated from the Code de l’Indigénat and cantonnement, Kanaks gained French citizenship. However, most of them retained the statut civil de droit particulier (in short, particular status) derived from discriminatory indigenous status, rather than opting for the civil status under the common law. Paradoxically, the particular status came to prove their indigeneity, while legally endorsing their rights to reserve land as unalienable property. Gradually gaining voting rights, Kanaks participated in Caledonian politics through the Union Calédonienne, the socialist party which was created through the amalgamation of the political organizations of Catholics and Protestants. Since Kanak-elected councilors5 were chiefs affiliated with these organizations, their modern politics began articulating with custom and Christianity. Their universal and particular rights as indigenous people were initially advocated by Western agents of communism, Christianity, and socialism. “Canaque” was also replaced by the neutral “Melanesians” as war veterans who had experienced the outside world claimed the term was derogatory. Although it became less used, whether it was meant to be pejorative or not depended on the context: a Kanak told me that he used the term in the mid-1960s in his customary welcoming speech of his tribu in the Islands to receive Caledonian guests “in the midst of Canaque society” (October 1997). This suggests that Melanesians had already domesticated the term as theirs, anticipating the future claim for Kanak identity.

5 Nine Kanak councilors were elected in 1953 for the first time. 48 J. Edo

3.2 Kanak Cultural Identity The Kanak identity struggle, which started with the liberation movement (1969-1975), commenced in the narrative of culture by demanding cultural rights. If culture is seen as a fundamental attribute in the paradigm of an imagined cultural community on the level of ethnicity, this is a new concept which did not exist before for the Kanak. Having undergone the baptism of the événements de Mai 68, Naisseline, the son of high chief on Maré in the Islands, who became the Melanesian student leader, says that he had discussions with various students from Africa and Latin America in France and learned that “everyone has the right to a culture, one’s own right to express opinions” (August, September 1996). We see that the awareness of one’s own culture and its rights are formed in relation to others. He also commented that since the beginning of the movement he was thinking of the question “Qui suis-je?” (“Who am I?”), which concerns “everything that’s entailed in cultural identity, which I do not reach yet” (Les Calédoniens, 1975: 10-16). As he sees identity as synonymous with culture, and if “culture is a way of not being uprooted”—as put by a Kanak official (October 1997)—it was a cultural identity that they were seeking as the basis of an imagined community at the level of ethnicity. So it was natural that he made the “predicament of culture” of the Canaque downtrodden by French colonization into a “historical site of struggle” (Clifford, 1998: 370). In 1969, by founding the political group the Foulards Rouges and its Journal, Réveil Canaque, Naisseline was engaged with young militants in a cultural struggle for their search of their identity by subverting the object position hitherto treated as the colonized in discourses of the colonizers and replacing it with the subject position. In France, in a joint struggle with Caledonian students, he paradoxically raised “Canaque” as the symbol of l’Homme libre (free man) not just for Melanesians but for all Caledonians to liberate themselves from colonial oppression in the journal, Le Canaque Homme Libre, created by their association (Association des Jeunes Calédoniens de Paris, February 1969: 1). Back home, however, discourse on “Canaque” shifted to the idea that “the colonized are no longer the people from Lifou, Houaîlou, or Canala, they are Canaques” (Foulards Rouges, October 1970: 1). The term became the identity of the Melanesians so as to unite regionally divided and fragmented Melanesian society as an imagined cultural community. An “authentic Canaque personality” (ibid., April 1971: 7) was primordially sought in articulation with the community level. In Réveil Canaque, Do Kamo by Leenhardt became its source: its review criticized his evolutionary view but also appreciated that he demonstrated the uniqueness of Kanak culture and proposed a new, reciprocal relationship with European culture through the “exchange and participation” which Leenhardt describes as the specificity of their culture in the book (ibid., July 1971: 10). However, the invention of neologisms such as canaquement (Kanakly) (ibid., July 1971: 10), Canaquisme (Kanakism) (ibid., November Narratives of Kanak Identity as an Articulated Ensemble 49

1971: 12), or Kanakitude (Kanakhood) (ibid., May 1972: 17) shows that in their pursuit of “Canaqueness” their discourses turned inwards by essentializing their culture based on their custom in the narrative of community, while dichotomizing between Western ones so as to differentiate from others. Their discursive practices, however, ontologically addressed to “us” by questioning “who we are” as the social subject, constructed their subjectivities as indigenous people. In New Caledonia, replacing the French spelling C with K usually connotes a stronger meaning: words were loaded with active and powerful meanings to serve their struggle. By the middle of the 1970s, the term was de-Frenchified or “kanakized” with the orthographic change from C to K.6 The process leading from “Canaque” to “Kanak” is to change identity from the colonized to the decolonized. That is, “Kanak,” being semantically decolonized, was politically charged with a historical mission for the revendication de l’identité kanak vis-à-vis other ethnic communities. Nidoish Naisseline, a Kanak politician, is undoubtedly seen as the initiator of “vehicles of power” of discourse on Kanak identity as “autoethnographic expression.” As he became a high chief, however, the young revolutionary leader who led the liberation movement became more traditionally oriented by going back to his roots. In fact, he saw culture with a value-oriented, rather static view emphasizing it as a set of values, shared and transmitted from generation to generation (Naisseline, 1982). It was then that Tjibaou came to embody Kanak cultural identity by organizing Melanesia 2000, a cultural festival in September 1975.7 As a former priest, having learned Occidental thoughts underlain by Christianity and having studied anthropology in France, he was able to objectify Kanak culture from both internal and external viewpoints. With the technical cooperation of Europeans and financial aid from France, in the festival Tjibaou demonstrated a total Kanak way of life in Nouméa, the capital of the territory, ranging from Kanak dancing and singing, ethnographic objects, and agricultural products to a mythological play. The festival was criticized by militants of the liberation movement as “a prostitution of Kanak culture” (October 1998). Tjibaou, however, said that the aim of the festival was “to do a ‘commercial’ on our culture for the White world” and that they should use whatever means were available (Tjibaou, 1996: 40, 45, 2005: 11, 17). We can see that he dynamically and pragmatically took an instrumentally-oriented view of culture as a political means to establish Kanak identity. The main feature of the festival, a play entitled Kanaké: les symboles de l’histoire, gave an answer to “Who am I?” Kanaké is a mythological hero, the clan founder of the east coast region on the Grande Terre.

6 “Kanak” spelling seems to have settled in the publication of the bulletin Réveil Canaque in 1974 since it is found from No. 36 (Foulards Rouges, July 1974) onward. 7 The festival, which was held in Nouméa from 3 to 7 September, mobilized 2,000 Kanak participants from all regions and attracted 50,000 spectators (Tjibaou, 1978: 5), including Caledonians. 50 J. Edo

By representing a Melanesian archetype through the local ancestor Kanaké, Tjibaou symbolically demonstrated the indigeneity of “Kanak” as “Who I am,” via colonization from the roots of “Kanaké” to the route of “Kanak,” with a close phonetic similarity. In other words, by retrieving a mythology from the level of an imagined primordial community in articulation with the level of ethnicity, he represented Kanak identity as a culturally imagined community. Kanak cultural identity, however, is not a continuum made of a traditional concept of community identity based on the clan. There is a structural discrepancy between the two: the former is categorically demarcated at the ethnicity level, while the latter is based on the relationship of kinship or traditional alliance. Despite this structural difference, cultural identity is imaginatively constructed on “analogy” (Calhoun, 1991: 107), with the latter as an articulated ensemble. Therefore, as put by a Kanak official: “What makes a difference among people” is “not the color of the skin” but “cultural behaviors” (October 1997). As the “analogy,” Kanak cultural behavior is fundamentally attributed to coutume, an Orientalist term originating in colonization. By reversing Orientialism, however, custom is positively represented as the embodiment of cultural behavior or acts. Although people have experienced hybridity in racial and cultural terms ever since Western contact, the métis (half-castes) were generally brought up in a Kanak maternal family in Kanak culture or a European paternal one in Caledonian culture, and outside elements such as Christianity were more ceremonially than spiritually customized in their cultural system. In this sense, though, they cannot manifest their cultural “authenticity,” but they can emphasize cultural values based on custom by differentiating them from those of Western culture. In the dual mode of culture and custom, the narrative of culture is articulated with the narrative of community as an “imagined primordial community” sharing custom: their propensity for pluralism on the community level is replaced by the emphasis on difference from other communities on the ethnicity level. What Tjibaou demonstrated in Melanesia 2000 in the center of “the White world,” however, was not just cultural identity. In Kanaké, he politically staged the historicity of the fait colonial and symbolically suggested the Kanak resolution to fight the fait colonial.8 If the festival initiated the “Kanak concept of a people” via “cultural demonstration,” as put by a Kanak official (October 1997), their cultural community is articulated with politically imagined community as a nation. In other words, the embodiment of Kanak cultural identity founded on indigeneity gave political impetus to the search for the identity of a nation.

8 The play was composed of 3 scenes: the first depicts life before colonization through custom; the second shows colonial conquest with the appearance of soldiers and huge marionettes oppressing Kanaks; and the third conveys the political message in that Kanaké throws a symbolic tree into a fire, but ends with a suggestion of reconciliation (Agence de Développement de la Culture Kanak [ADCK] 1995, Mwà Véé 10: 8-17). Narratives of Kanak Identity as an Articulated Ensemble 51

3.3 Kanak Sovereignty in Indépendance Kanak The narrative of nation emerged in the independence movement (1975-1988),9 where an “imagined political community” as a nation was sought through the demand for rights to Kanak sovereignty in indépendance Kanak with indigeneity as its historical ground. A Kanak politician comments, “the revendication de l’identité kanak does not mean establishing the identité de l’ethnie (identity of an ethnic group), although it has evolved as an ethnic name, but means achieving the goal of nation—the identité de la nation (identity of the nation)” (August 1996). In this context of seeking the identity of a nation, “Kanak” is not a proper noun but a generic term embodying the original “kanaka” as “man” connoting the potential nation in which sovereignty lies. His discourse demonstrates the bifurcation into cultural discourse and political discourse. In other words, Kanak identity as an articulated ensemble is constructed on the discrepancy between cultural identity and political identity: an imagined cultural community of a Kanak people and an imagined political community comprising also other ethnic communities within the paradigm of the nation-state. Because of this structural difference on the level of ethnicity and nation, the narrative of nation is articulated with and disarticulated from the narrative of culture. It was in July 1983 at a round-table discussion in Nainville-les-Roches, the outcome of which was called the “Déclaration de la Table ronde” (in short, DTR), that the legitimacy of the Kanak people as the original inhabitants and their innate and active right to independence were for the first time recognized. However, the right to self-determination by referendum with one man, one vote was also open for historical reasons to non-Kanaks, whose legitimacy was recognized by Kanak representatives (DTR: 2).10 The dilemma of the Indépendantistes lay in the fact that the Kanaks are a minority: 70-80% of them are said to support independence, while most non-Kanaks are against it.11 In this identity politics of a multi-ethnic society, as the political minority, the indépendantistes interpreted the right to self-determination not as an individual right but as a collective right: they argued that other ethnic communities did not have an innate and active right to take the initiative

9 The independence movement started with the communiqué of “Indépendance Kanak” issued by Kanak politicians and militant organizations in June 1975 (Association pour la Fondation d’un Institut Kanak d’Histoire Moderne, n.d.: 86-87). 10 While recognizing the legitimacy of the descendants of convicts and settlers affected by the fait colonial, Tjibaou defined its cut-off point as 1951, when Kanaks voted with them for the first time, and those who arrived later than that as ineligible to vote for the right to self-determination (Tjibaou 1996: 184, 2005: 158-159). Although the Nainville-les-Roches meeting (8-12 July) was attended by the indépendantistes (FI), the loyalists (RPCR), the centrists (FNSC), and France (DOM-TOM minister), the loyalists refused to sign its communiqué (DTR). The DTR is composed of 3 parts, including the aforementioned part (2) in the text. The gist of (1) confirms the abolition of the fait colonial, the equality of Melanesian culture and the institutionalization of customary representation; and (3) states that France is responsible for the exercise of self-determination, by taking necessary transitional steps including economic development. 11 Tjibaou presumed that 10-15% of Kanak are on the Whites’ side while non-Kanaks with indépendantistes at 7-10% (Tjibaou, 1996: 177, 2005: 150). 52 J. Edo for independence (Union Calédonienne, July 1983: 887). Therefore, a Kanak official says, “I am not ethnic…I am…as [one of the] autochthonous people…When you use ethnie (ethnic group), it indicates a certain number of populations who live in a given place from which they do not originate...People equals nation” (October 1997). As the term ethnie also has a colonial connotation, Kanaks in general refuse the term for themselves: to differentiate themselves from others, they use “people,” equivalent to “nation as sovereign,” while reserving the term ethnie for non-Kanaks, seen as non-sovereign. Having seen that their “innate and active right” would not be implemented by France, indépendantistes founded the hard-line Front Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS) in September 1984. Its charter (1984) makes their major claims to their inalienable rights, including that of exercising full and free self-determination and unconditional and unrestricted sovereignty, by referring to the UN “Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Territories and Peoples” (UN Resolution 1514) as the international grounds (Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste [FLNKS], 1987?: 2). Kanak nationalism reached its zenith on 1 December 1984 when the FLNKS established a provisional government of Kanaky (Kanak country), with Tjibaou as the president, raising its FLNKS flag in a suburb of Nouméa. Thus, the indépendantistes’ search for a nation as an imagined political community expanded into an imagined state of Kanaky by strategically drawing public attention to the issue.12 The FLNKS Projet de Constitution (January 1987),13 reveals efforts to domesticate the nation-state: the preamble states that the Kanak people constitute “a national, free, united, and sovereign community,” while its first article added “pluri- ethnique,” and repeated almost the same statement (ibid., 1987). Because of this distortion, indépendantistes demanded “Kanak sovereignty.” Tjibaou asserted (November 1984): “The sovereignty of this country belongs to the Kanaks and to no one else… for independence is our heritage” (Tjibaou, 1996: 164, 2005: 138). He interpreted sovereignty (March 1985) as “the right to choose partners,” and independence as “the power to manage all the needs that colonization, the present system, has created.” The Kanak people need the restitution of sovereignty: “sovereignty over men, over the land, what is under the ground, the airspace, the sea, etc.” (ibid., 1996: 179, 2005: 152). That is, independence means the restitution of the sovereignty to establish New Caledonia as a nation-state; and “Kanak sovereignty” would give the right to choose “partners” for Kanaky. Here, the paradigm of the nation-state is embedded in the narrative of heritage, in that the innate rights to sovereignty and self-determination, and other rights, are derived

12 They also made “Kanak” and “Kanaky” invariant in gender and number, whether as noun or adjective (FLNKS, 1987?: 8). 13 According to the Projet de Constitution (Draft of Constitution of Kanaky), Kanaky has a president elected by members of the national assembly, the senate and regional assemblies (FLNKS, 1987). Narratives of Kanak Identity as an Articulated Ensemble 53 from ancestors, in whom Kanak indigeneity is rooted. In other words, an “imagined political community” sharing sovereignty is articulated with an “imagined primordial community,” in which the image of communion with ancestors resides. On the one hand, the above “partners” means France, in accordance with indépendance en association avec la France (independence in association with France), a proposal made by a special envoy14 sent from France (December 1984) amid the tensions arising from the independence movement. On the other, it indicates that non-Kanaks, too, are welcomed as partners. Here, the traditional practice of accueil des étrangers (welcome of foreigners) in the narrative of community is recontexualized in the narrative of nation. Accueil des étrangers is the customary practice of receiving newcomers as a clan accueilli (welcomed clan) within their community or in the tribu,15 where the maître de la terre, being the founder of land as the first occupant, has droit d’accueil (right of welcoming). In the narrative of culture, this welcoming of foreigners is often and emphatically referred to as an important concept in Kanak cultural values vis-à-vis other ethnic communities. In the narrative of nation, it is asserted that the Kanak people, who have the innate and active right to sovereignty, have the right to exercise accueil des non-Kanak to Kanaky. In the articulation of 3 levels, just as the étrangers are welcomed by the local maître de la terre with mutual beneficial relations, those who agree with Kanak independence are welcomed as members of the nation by the Kanak as the original people. However, the opposition between Kanak indépendantistes and Caldoche loyalists intensified, resulting in the so-called événements, a series of bloody conflicts between Caldoches and Kanaks. The eventual truce agreed to by the Matignon Accords (June 1988) is seen in the next chapter.

3.4 Revendication Foncière If the knowledge/power of Kanak identity sustaining the regime of truth is constructed around “indigeneity” with routes and roots, there is no doubt that land represents the most solid base of Kanak indigeneity. Following the cultural claim made by young militants—mainly from the Loyalty Islands—the revendication foncière (claim for land) was led by those on the Grande Terre, where land was greatly alienated by colonization. The Groupe 1878, founded in 1974 and named after the revolt of chief Atai in 1878 on the west coast, asserted the unconditional return of lost territories. A former member of the Groupe represented identity in the narrative of community as

14 Conceding that independence was an unavoidable issue, the special envoy, Edgard Pisani, proposed in January 1985, indépendance en association avec la France and a referendum to be held in 1985. 15 Newcomers are often invited to take the position of chiefs to solve the problems of community. Situated in the reserve, the tribu as a Kanak residential organization is usually composed of several clans. Today, however, the term tribu is used in the context of Kanak villages rather than in that of such residential organization, for which chefferie (chiefdom) is employed. 54 J. Edo

“autochtone,” the term emphatically used to mean those who originated from the land: “The Kanak say we have arisen from the land…It is a place, which is sacred, where our ancestors are. This is the characteristic of our identity” (October 1997). In this mythological mode, as the clan disperses from the tertre (house mound), the original site of the settlement founded by their common ancestor, its segments create their own tertres where their founders started. Therefore, they have their own tertres-lignages (hereafter tertres- lineages), which can be traced back in space conjoining different tertres up to the tertre of the original ancestor as their “itinerary.” The closer it is to the original tertre of the founding ancestor, the more prestigious it is, and as people cannot memorize all the genealogies, new tertres-lineages are founded by taking names of preceding tertres-lineages. As the names drawn from these sites are fixed with places and the toponyms and patronyms can be superimposed and interchanged, competition for obtaining a higher name or status even caused wars (Bensa, 1982: 51-84). What is really essential to the clan then is not the “authenticity” of the tertres-lineages, but the names the clan possesses and the “itineraries” as routes leading back to the tertres as roots. Here, we see how indigeneity is rooted in and routed through particular places. French colonization disrupted such itineraries with an attempt to change customary landownership of the clan to collective ownership of the tribu, and with forcible displacement. However, the itinerary which the clan traced from the original place of their ancestors was not forgotten, as it has been orally transmitted, conveying the names the clan possesses, which link their rights with the places of these names. Since an “Authentic identity card is not a piece of paper, but land,” commented a Kanak official (October 1997), they had to restore autochthonous identity as the clan by recovering their lost land from which their ancestors originated. Therefore, by demanding their rights via the revendication foncière on the level of nation, autochthonous identity is sought through the narrative of community as an “imagined primordial community.” Being articulated with both levels, the revendication foncière figured strongly in the FLNKS charter: the rights to repossess all land so as to make the whole and single homeland the Kanak country (FLNKS, 1987?: 2), where their right to “accueil des non-Kanak” is supported by the particular status of the autochtones. As “culture has to be practiced in the precise place where the Kanak are with clan and ancestors” according to the former member of the Groupe (October 1998), culture and land are linked in the revendication de l’identité kanak. Thus, the autochthonous identity of a primordial community is articulated with Kanak identity on the levels of ethnicity and nation. In the interplay among politico-cultural, customary, and mythological modes, the revendication foncière on the nation level is retrieved on the level of community. However, since autochtone can shift from Kanak “nation” to the clan and the tribu, or maître de la terre and individual Kanaks, indigeneity is Narratives of Kanak Identity as an Articulated Ensemble 55 multi-faceted and complex in relation to rights. The revendication foncière was also strategically employed to heighten Kanak nationalism, linking the level of nation to that of community by locally mobilizing people to occupy land owned by Caldoches. A militant recalls, “Land occupation spread from valley to valley like an epidemic… The country shook and the blancs (Europeans) grew nervous. As tension mounted, they began shooting Kanaks” (November 1998). Stressing the primordial Kanak attachment to land, the land occupations awoke their notion of autochtones as forming a potential nation. In this sense, Kanak nationalism was implanted by direct action on the ground at a community level, which caused the événements by making European settlers fear the loss of their land.

3.5 Socialism Under the slogan of Indépendence kanak socialiste (IKS), the FLNKS charter also demanded the means necessary to pursue its economic, social, and cultural development via the construction of socialism. Here, the construction of socialist Kanaky was strategically adopted in terms of the claim for rights to socio-economic and cultural development in the narrative of nation. In the socialist tradition of the territory, student leaders in the liberation movement brought back the leading- edge ideology from France and renewed the moderate socialism of the Union Calédonienne. They represented socialism as the antithesis of colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism as practiced in the territory: the major nickel industry was monopolized by SLN (Société le Nickel), a subsidiary of a French mining company, and the economy was dominated by a handful of Caldoche business tycoons in Nouméa. Specifically, a nickel boom from the late 1960s to the middle of the 1970s increased investment in and development of Nouméa with a flow of immigrants, while the majority of Kanaks in the brousse (countryside) were left behind and socio-economically marginalized. Under such ethnic and regional disparities, they believed “socialism could change New Caledonia,” according to a then-Kanak militant (October 1997). The FLNKS adopted socialism as its political discipline to refuse capitalist exploitation: the geo-political division between Nouméa, held by non- Kanak loyalists and the brousse, mostly under Kanak indépendantistes, is superimposable with the disparities. The FLNKS demanded a fair distribution of wealth and the right to development. In this sense, the FLNKS siege of Thio (November 1984), the oldest and biggest mining town on the east coast historically exploited by SLN, had a symbolic meaning for Kanak right to benefit from economic resources. The demand for socialism as anti-capitalism, however, was linked with coutume in the narrative of community. A Kanak says, “something which can be called a little socialist” (October 1997) exist in Kanak society, referring to “partage ensemble (sharing together) and solidarity” practiced in coutume. As a Kanak housewife says, “Before there was no politics, only coutume” 56 J. Edo

(October 1997), custom is a sort of panacea as the total governing system of community life. As socio-economic and politico-cultural acts, coutume is demonstrated in Kanak practice, which is typically represented by the gift-exchange system between groups for alliances: commonly called coutume, the exchange is seen as an indigenous socio-economic activity with its reciprocity between groups, redistribution of gifts, and market exchange, as Polanyi points out (Polanyi, 1988: 88-102). Since the purpose of Kanak gift exchange is not the accumulation of wealth but that of social relations, “sharing” and “solidarity” are asserted as Kanak cultural values in the narrative of culture in opposition to the individual-oriented capitalism of the European community on the level of ethnicity. Thus, the demand for socialism in socio-economic development on the nation level is represented as Kanak socialism in conjunction with coutume on the community level as a narrative of social exchange. We will see how this Kanak socialism is linked with and unlinked from and relinked with economic development in the Modern Arena.

4. Kanak Identity in the Modern Arena

The Kanak identity struggle resulted in first the Matignon Accords (1988-1998) and then the Nouméa Accord (1998-2018), which were concluded among the representatives of the 3 partners, indépendantistes, France, and loyalists. Having gone through the independence movement, in this period of Accords has New Caledonia reached a post-colonial stage then? If “post-colonial” literally means a state of post-decolonization, then this period is not so, since New Caledonia has not completed its decolonization yet. However, Kanak identity is certainly situated in the “modern arena,” since the recovery of their rights is officially recognized, albeit complicated, by globalization. In the following pages, we will see what became of the revendication de l’identité kanak.

4.1 From Matignon Accords to Nouméa Accord The Matignon Accords (Journal Officiel de la République Française [JORF], 1988), made a year before the fall of the Berlin Wall, successfully brought about a truce and opened up a way to reconciliation and dialogue between Kanak and non-Kanak with the promise of a referendum on the future of the territory to be held in 1998. By way of decentralizing the territory, 3 provinces were created, reflecting the distribution of population: the 2 known as North Province and Loyalty Islands Province, under the control of Kanak pro-indépendantistes, and the South Province, under that of Caledonian loyalists. Massive French subventions promoted socio-economic development at the provincial level, in terms of infrastructure and manpower, to rectify regional and ethnic inequalities. That is, the newly emerged provinces under their autonomy were entrusted with the Narratives of Kanak Identity as an Articulated Ensemble 57 responsibility of pushing economic development as prime movers.16 Since the Accords opened up economic routes for the Kanaks by achieving peace and shelving the issue of independence for 10 years, “After the Accords, the term ‘Kanak’ changed its content…it has come to mean more the construction of the pays (country)” (October 1997), according to a Kanak politician. This means that discursive practice on Kanak identity shifted from the decolonization struggle to the construction of the pays. That is, an economic mission was loaded onto the fighting term “Kanak” in a narrative of capital. This coincides with the dropping of the demand for socialism, which was replaced by the direct objective of economic development, which, indépendantistes believe, will lead to independence and not vice-versa. Tjibaou refers to this as “an extraordinary gamble” since the economy used to be the means of alienation of the Kanaks (Tjibaou, 1996: 280, 2005: 265). Assassinated (1989) by a Kanak who was against the Accords, he did not live to see the outcome of the gamble. However, the narrative of capital by provincialization was confronted by the difficulties of managing economic development via administrative power: provincial projects, which financially depend on French aid, did not coordinate well with local communities. Referring to the movement of koperativ (cooperative), which emerged in the 1980s in various places on the Grande Terre and in the Islands, a Kanak politician criticizes, “Before provincialization, koperativ worked: there was a market in tribus and people were counting money and managing everything by themselves. But proactive development by provincialization with plentiful money drove the koperativ out of the market as people became less enthusiastic” (September 2005). On the other hand, another Kanak politician reveals the dilemma: “Concrete things have to be done at the grass-roots level, which means promoting things that make for economic development in the tribu” (November 1998). If “community is not easily appropriated within the narrative of capital” (Chatterjee, 1993: 236), does the discrepancy between the provincial/national level and that of community make for inconsistency between the narrative of community and the narrative of capital? However, it is said that the Matignon Accords exploited people through the power of money: Kanaks comment, “The money turned people’s heads” (October 1998), or “Now, people share less” (November 1998), or “Previously everybody did the same thing. Now, each one does what he wants” (October 1998). This also runs counter to Kanak socialism linked with coutume as the medium of social exchange in the narrative of community. However, a Kanak housewife says, “To be Kanak is to be social” (September 1997) and a Kanak comments, “the term socialism evokes an idea of gathering together, from which one can share the profits of wealth. This is not socialism but perhaps capitalism” (October 1997). If Kanak socialism is in the literal sense “living society,” then

16 Each province has a provincial assembly of members with its president, who is the executive and head of provincial government. 58 J. Edo one cannot help being social and participating in coutume; if people can share economic profits, including cash from gift-exchange by participation, “Kanak socialism” can pragmatically shift to “Kanak capitalism.” In other words, it is their communal relationship that informs Kanak socialism and capitalism as the 2 phases of Kanak personhood. In fact, one Kanak comments that successful Kanak entrepreneurs know how to handle 2 systems: “In Kanak culture, the more they give, the more they are honored. They participate, circulate, and distribute money in custom but shorten their stay. Thus, they manage 2 obligations, their work and custom” (October 1998). By retaining communal relationships through practicing gift exchange and engaging in business in the economic market, thus bridging the 2 systems, Kanak entrepreneurs make the 2 systems compatible in the modern arena. If the Accords replaced “the problems of independence with problems of development and of economic adjustment” (Naisseline, 1994: 13), 10 years turned out to be not long enough to achieve economic development: toward the end of the Accords in 1996-1998, almost all Kanak said about independence, “Yes, but not now.” Consequently, negotiations of a future of political status were to be the conclusion of the Nouméa Accord in May 1998. With the coming of globalization, the Nouméa Accord (JORF, 1998) saw the dawning of a new era for the revendication de l’identité Kanak as an articulated ensemble. The preamble acknowledges the mistakes France made in colonization, while officially referring to the terms “Kanak” and “Kanak identity.” Since the Accord stipulates that their confiscated identity needs to be restored (Preamble 1.3), in the terms of the original sense of “Kanaka,” pride or dignity as human beings downtrodden by colonization has been recovered as l’homme debout, so the people had expressed their wishes in the revendication de l’identité Kanak.

4.2 Tjibaou Cultural Center In this sense, it is the Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Center, inaugurated a day before the signing of the Accord, that most tangibly embodies the outcome of Kanak identity struggle. Following the Matignon Accords, which founded the Agence de Développement de la Culture Kanak (ADCK) in 1988, the Nouméa Accord recognizes that colonization negated Kanak culture and promises to protect Kanak cultural heritages and development17 (JORF, 1998: Nouméa Accord 1.3). Standing on the outskirts of Nouméa, the politico-economic, multi-ethnic, and tourism-oriented capital, with its sail-shaped spectacular lines, designed by Renzo Piano, inspired by the structural model of the Kanak traditional case (hut), the Center seems symbolically heading toward the future in search of Kanak identity.

17 It includes the return of ethnographical objects and the establishment of an academy for the Kanak language (JORF, 1998: Nouméa Accord 1.3). Narratives of Kanak Identity as an Articulated Ensemble 59

Giving the appearance of being a public domain, as a modern cultural arena on a national level, with the highlights of Oceanic contemporary art, the Center may not, however, provide Kanaks with a familiar ambience of customary space on a community level: a Kanak housewife disappointedly says, “We cannot have the opportunity to organize customary events such as marriage (at the center)” (November 1998). This does not mean a severance of the link with coutume on which Kanak culture is based. It is, however, a shift of representation in the narrative of culture attached to triple-nation, culture, and community levels from the dual mode of culture and custom in the independence movement to that of culture and nation in the modern arena. In short, it means a “reformulation” (Tjibaou, 1996: 185) of Kanak cultural identity. Thus, an official comments, “The Center develops 2 communications, traditional and modern, and its significance is in the roots of our past and opening of our future” (October 1997). That is, by bridging from the past to the future through the present, the Center is the contact zone of the different cultures, the traditional and the modern. This cultural direction as reformulation can be found in the main projects of the ADCK- Center such as recording oral tradition, which by belonging to clans and families, has remained inside closed communion on a community level. This intangible asset for Kanaks is in crisis due to a sharp decrease in people capable of transmitting vernacular languages. The project aims to create archives by transcribing “paroles” (speeches) not by outside anthropologists, but by Kanaks trained as collectors. While the subjects of collection range widely, the “toponym” would take priority for the Kanak18 in relation to their customary rights to land, as a collector in the Northern Province said that the first subject he tackled was toponym (September 2007). Thus, their roots are articulated with their future through écriture. The creation of the archives, however, means the transition to cultural patrimony on the ethnic level under the protection of the nation mode as a public asset. The other project aims to develop contemporary art by organizing training programs for Kanak artists. A Kanak sculptor who studied traditional carving with his grandfather and participated in the program says, “I mix the contemporary and the traditional…The theme is always attached to Kanak culture” (September 2005). That is, inspired by the traditional, artists create contemporary works with modern concepts and techniques. In other words, not as ethnological objects but as the object of commodities, contemporary art is part of the narrative of capital as national culture on the level of nation: Tjibaou encouraged the creation of “made in Kanaky products” that can stand on their own in the marketplace (Tjibaou, 1996: 296, 2005: 281) as an economic strategy. The Center has also been working as a cultural contact zone in which the different cultures of Oceania, other regions, and Kanak and Caledonian communities cross over boundaries. In relation

18 The Nouméa Accord (JORF, 1998: Nouméa Accord 1.3.1) stipulates the investigation and re- establishment of toponyms as Kanak patrimony. 60 J. Edo to the Caledonian communities, by organizing exhibitions, it uncovers the past and sheds new light on historically touchy and debatable subjects such as the people who were forcibly brought or migrated to New Caledonia. A Caldoche woman and politician comments that the Kanak identity claim made it possible to open the minds of Caledonians and see back to their own roots and family history (September 2007). If the Kanak identity struggle led other communities to think of their own identities, this relaxed the boundaries within a multi-ethnic society, making it possible to conceive of new articulations with different communities and regions in cultural diversity. Therefore, in the narrative of culture in the modern arena, the “reformulation” of Kanak identity as an “imagined cultural community” began by launching into retrieval of the past from the present so as to search for its future through the itinerary of the routes to the roots.

4.3 Shared Sovereignty in Interdependence with Others The reformulation of Kanak cultural identity corresponds to that of its political identity as a nation sought through the narrative of nation. In terms of sovereignty, recognizing the legitimacy of non-Kanaks living in New Caledonia, the Nouméa Accord stipulates “shared sovereignty” with France, and heading toward “full sovereignty” with the creation of citizenship of New Caledonia as a common destiny (JORF, 1998: Nouméa Accord: Preamble 5). Therefore, soon after the Accord, a Kanak school master said, “Up until the present, the Kanak and Caldoches have had their own destinies, but…we have only one destiny from now on as that is the destiny of this country. This is new and has never been seen before” (November 1998). This means that the Kanak and non-Kanak share the common destiny of an imagined political community on a national level and with “shared sovereignty” with France. In this shared sovereignty, powers have been transferred irreversibly from France to New Caledonia in a gradual process of sharing responsibilities.19 Whether New Caledonia achieves “full sovereignty,” however, will be decided by the final referendum held in 201820 and therefore not assured. However, full sovereignty as an independent nation means the association with France as aforementioned. This reminds us of Tjibaou’s interpretation of sovereignty as the right to choose partners: he pragmatically says, “For a small country like ours, independence is choosing interdependencies skillfully” (Tjibaou, 1996: 179, 2005: 152). If, by “choosing interdependencies skillfully,” Kanak independence turns into independence in association with France as a partner,

19 Under the Nouméa Accord, the Congress of New Caledonia, composed of the representatives from the 3 Provincial Assemblies elected by provincial elections, has the power to make the “loi du pays” (law of the country) and elects the government—its members and president—from candidates listed by political parties on a proportional representation basis. 20 Concerning the referendum, see Journal Officiel de la Nouvelle-Calédonie (JONC) 1999: Articles 216- 221. Not necessarily all citizens can participate in the referendum: on the qualification of the referendum, see JONC, 1999: Article 218. Narratives of Kanak Identity as an Articulated Ensemble 61 political leaders must have realized that independence has proven to be much the same as interdependence, in that independence from others and dependence on others are not antinomic but complementary. Therefore, if “what matters is not independence but interdependence,” according to a Caledonian indépendantiste (October 1998), Kanak indépendantistes anonymously say, “I want independence, but this is interdependence.” And if “there is no longer genuine sovereignty” (December 2004), according to a Kanak official, in a situation in which indépendantistes remain a minority, a Kanak indepéndantiste says, “If the majority is against independence, I accept it. We have to live together” (October 1998), or “Independence, but together with others” (October 1998), as said by a young Kanak. Thus, in the narrative of nation, “Kanak sovereignty in indépendance kanak,” meaning that only Kanaks had the right to sovereignty, has changed in the modern arena into “shared sovereignty in Kanak interdependence,” meaning in partnership with non-Kanaks. That is, in the narrative of nation, the identity of an “imagined political community” is reformulated as shared sovereignty in articulation with other ethnic communities. This, however, does not mean to deny their discursive practice on accueil des étrangers claiming the right to welcome outsiders on the level of community, or asserting it as their cultural values on the level of ethnicity, since these 3 levels are disarticulated. If polls approve it, “Citizenship reflects the chosen common destiny and could become a nationality” (JORF, 1998: Nouméa Accord 2).21 A Kanak school teacher says, “People now think of how our common destiny will be, how to construct the country of tomorrow and not in terms of whether we have independence or not” (September 2005). If people think of how to share the common destiny in partnership between Kanaks and Caledonians, it can be said that awareness as citizens is being formed. Partnership, however, has 2 different criteria for citizens: those with the statut civil coutumier (customary status),22 renamed from “particular status,” and those under common law. Referring to the renaming, a Kanak politician comments, “The customary status does not only relate to land, but denotes the recognition of Kanak culture, of a person as a Kanak in relation to Kanak languages and culture, which existed before colonization” (September 2007). In other words, narrative of community based on custom is always the root of the narratives of culture and nation endorsing their indigeneity. In terms of rights, however, under the dual citizenship of Caledonians, the Kanak as the customary citizen with indigenous rights is linked on the national

21 Citizenship is defined as those who have French nationality and those who fulfil the qualifications of the right to vote in provincial elections of New Caledonia based on the frozen electorate of 1988 (JONC, 1999: Articles 188, 218) as well as the qualification of the right to local employment which is ruled by the loi du pays (law of the country) of 2010. 22 Although it was always possible for Kanaks to change the customary (particular) status into that under common law, whereas the reverse was impossible, the Accord makes it possible for those who have lost the status to recover it, if a parent had a particular status going back to one’s family line. See detail in JONC, 1999: Articles 7-17. 62 J. Edo level with non-Kanak citizens whose rights under common law are different. New Caledonia is moving towards the exit from the Accord, nearly a half-century after the beginnings of the liberation movement. The transfer of “shared sovereignty” from France is the emancipatory process of a once-colonized country. Thus, a Caledonian woman politician refers to the Accord as successful decolonization, because it is a good process showing how to manage the country together, whereas France failed in decolonization in Algeria, Indochina, or Vanuatu (September 2007). A Kanak woman politician, a moderate-centralist, comments, “Whether we have independence or not, it carries the same meaning…what is important is to manage to live together for the construction of the country…the struggle has to lead not to violence but to the ability to build the country” (August 2007). On the other hand, a Kanak indépendantiste woman politician asserts, “For me, the Nouméa Accord is a transitional period. It is emancipation, self-determination, and with full sovereignty at the end. This is the responsibility of France” (September 2007). In other words, unless sovereignty is once returned, decolonization of New Caledonia is incomplete. Therefore, full sovereignty as an independent nation would mean first disarticulating from the State by completing the process of decolonization and then re-articulating with France in partnership: for example, the aforementioned associated state might negotiate a treaty of association or a new accord. This process would give substance to the decolonization of New Caledonia and the subsequent interdependence with France in a new partnership. Whether or not people are in favor of independence, they are facing a referendum to decide their future political status, to be held at the latest in November 2018, before which they should be well informed of what their options are in circumstances surrounded by ambiguities and anxieties.23 However, whether it is independence or not, in the political context of the narrative of a nation, the process of the construction of the pays can be interpreted as the preparation for nation-building, aiming at an “imagined political community” as a nation with a common destiny able to coexist

23 The ambiguities lie in the Nouméa Accord: if the electorate votes against the accession to full sovereignty, the Congress will arrange at the request of at least one third of its members a second poll in the second year, and a further poll may be held using the same procedure. If this fails, the political partners will consider the situation and the political status quo will irrevocably stay in force (Provision 5). In this context, considering the 5-year term of office of the Congress (May 2014-May 2019), a report raises the theoretical possibility of repeated referendums until 2022, in which case the status of the Nouméa Accord would be extended to cover the period of May 2019-2022. Therefore, the Report hypothesizes 4 options for the future status: full sovereignty with or without partnership with France, autonomy extended, and permanent autonomy within the Republic of France (Courtial and Mélin- Soucramanien, 2014). Anxieties of the people derive from the lack of appropriate information. Another report comments: while people’s concern about the referendum is mounting, both political camps of indépendantistes and loyalists, preoccupied with internal conflicts, are ill-prepared to provide well-explained views and accounts of the institutional evolution to be decided by the referendum (French Government, 2017). Under such circumstances, according to an opinion poll held by L’Institut I-Scope in 2017 (23 March-4 May), 54.2% of people are against accession to full sovereignty (Outremers360, 22 August 2017). Narratives of Kanak Identity as an Articulated Ensemble 63 with others. Therefore, as articulation is strategically achieved, it is possible to imagine a new ensemble of Kanak identity legally and culturally connected with different communities as citizens, or politically articulated as a bi-nation such as Nouvelle-Calédonie-Kanaky with other ethnic communities and France.

4.4 Customary Lands As aforementioned, the renamed customary status is the legal framework for proving Kanak indigeneity and guarantees customary rights, especially access to customary lands, as autochtones. So, how has the revendication fonciére as the part of the Kanak identity struggle on the nation level turned out in the modern arena? While recognizing the traditional concept of Kanak identity based on a particular relationship with the land (JORF, 1998: Nouméa Accord: Preamble 1, 3), the Nouméa Accord promotes the reform of terres coutumières (customary lands) consisting of reserves, lands allotted to the Groupement de Droit Particulier Local (GDPL), and those held in stock by the Agence de Développement Rural et d’Aménagement Foncier (ADRAF) (JORF, 1998: Nouméa Accord 1.4).24 Since the Matignon Accord, the ADRAF has been tackling Kanak claims by purchasing mainly private land from European settlers.25 The ADRAF assigns land free to the GDPL in the form of grouping units organized by those who mostly hold customary status, subject to their claim to lost territory being officially deemed to be “authentic.” However, lands which are unable to be allocated, because of conflicts between Caldoche settlers or among Kanaks themselves, pile up as ADRAF stock.26 According to an official, “The majority of the conflicts are today not those between Europeans and Kanaks but more among Kanaks” (September 2005). Whereas during the independence movement, claims were made in political alliance among indépendantistes more on tribu-base in solidarity and in opposition to Caldoches, in this reconciliation period, Kanaks, including loyalists, individually claim more on a clan basis. Consequently, the official says, “Sometimes, there are several claims made over the same zone” (September 2005). That is, there exist different versions of the legitimacy to a given land zone. The urban areas, where land prices

24 Terres coutumières are all inalienable. GDPL, which was legally created in 1989, means the group governed by special local law provisions. Today, as the result of land return, the customary land comprises about 18% on the Grande Terre and 26% of all New Caledonia. Reserve land, accounting for nearly 80% of the entire customary land, is no longer enlarged since land is in principle returned to the GDPL. On the Grande Terre, reserve land comprises 65% and GDPL land 31% of the customary lands, while in the Loyalty Islands 100% is reserve land and there is no GDPL land (ADRAF: Cartographie des terres coutumières). Available from: http://www.adraf.nc/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12&Itemid=26. 25 The ADRAF also deals with properties belonging to church and public land to allocate to Kanaks. 26 According to an official, there are nearly 20,000 ha of land stock unable to be allocated because of conflicts (September 2005). 64 J. Edo are rising in line with economic development, or the areas of mining development, are especially contested grounds for the claims of rights. In fact, the relationship between land and its customary rights is traditionally unfixed and changeable in the narrative of community. As a Kanak comments that “land does not mean topography but the genealogy of the clan which owns the land” (October 1998), oral tradition reciting the genealogy or itinerary of the clan is a useful tool for their claim for land in the interchangeability between patronym and toponym: it can be taken as an “oral cadastre” by customary discourse. Consequently, disputes over land among autochtones are frequent on a community level: as a Kanak puts it, “Everything is passed down orally, and as time goes by, people interpret in their own way in their favor…there are conflicts all over” (October 1997). Because of the conflicts and uncertainties surrounding customary rights to given lands, the Accord specifies that customary lands must be surveyed and registered (JORF, 1998: Nouméa Accord: 1.4). This means that cultural “authenticity” in accordance with the “oral cadastre” will be replaced by legal “authenticity” according to the registry, since customary landownership is officially identified, demarcated, and fixed on paper at a national level, while losing its fluidity in the narrative of community. In this modern arena, since the narrative of the nation as an “imagined political community” has now become embedded in the narrative of capital, having shifted from the narrative of heritage as represented in the decolonization movement, discourse on land is loaded with the mission of economic development for the construction of pays or building a nation on the land. Autochthonous identity as an “imagined primordial community” being articulated with Kanak identity as an ensemble of the triple levels, is also incorporated into the narrative of capital. On the level of community, it is the GDPL, a legally created new unit, that is expected to promote economic development of customary land as a key player. Unlike the reserves, GDPL land is classified as private, collective property as a renewed model of customary land ownership: it can be rented and tax is levied so as to encourage Kanak participation in the market economy with land as capital to invest. In the midst of development of nickel industry as seen below, “There are big proprietors of mining land who get money, while others don’t” (October 1998), says a Kanak. Another Kanak, whose tribu is involved in mining development, deplores the fact that mountains and forests are sacred, where the spirits of ancestors reside, but “nickel destroys everything, it’s finished” (September 2007). This secularization of ancestors’ land coincides with the aforementioned crisis of the oral tradition as well as a shift from “oral cadastre” to legal registry. Tjibaou said that Kanak concept of land is not capital in a Western sense, but “patrimoine” (heritage) (Tjibaou, 1996: 110, 2005: 82). However, if the soil of a sacred place belonging to ancestors changes into economic soil, the autochthonous conception of land shifts from patrimoine to capital asset. This means that, in the Narratives of Kanak Identity as an Articulated Ensemble 65 narrative of community, the identity of autochtones rooted in ancestors’ land is reformulated.

4.5 Economic Development The demand for Kanak rights to socio-economic development, which the decolonization movement had made in terms of socialism and the refusal of capitalist exploitation, was officially recognized in the Matignon Accords, and massive French subvention has been implemented to the provinces in their autonomy. Succeeding to this, the Nouméa Accord promises to continue economic support for New Caledonia (JORF, 1998: Nouméa Accord 4). That is, the Kanak demand for socio-economic development is endorsed throughout the period of the Accords with the guarantee of French subventions. This means that Kanak identity as the ensemble with the triple levels is now part of the narrative of capital with the aim of constructing the pays. The 2 main sectors promoting the narrative of capital are undoubtedly the financial source of French subventions and mineral resources, especially nickel. The former, however, seems to structuralize dependency as a vicious cycle rather than promoting self-dependence by changing a colonial system into a neo-colonial one and a socialist orientation into a capitalist one. At the same time, however, the author found the increasing activity of Kanaks in the market economy in fieldwork in the 2000s in comparison with the 1990s. Conjoining 2 systems of the market exchange of gift-giving and market economy, Kanaks seem to be learning economic know-how while sharing the benefits in the former and consuming them in the latter. On the other hand, the nickel industry, a key economic sector for the construction of the pays, has been promoted in Koniambo in the North Province and Goro in the South Province with their mineral resources. In the completion of their own plants, joint-ventures are entrusted to multi-national mining enterprises as the co-partners of provincial corporations27 under the motto of sustainable development, while struggling with environmental problems. As administrative actors in the Provinces, taking proactive approaches for economic development in articulation with local communities, autochtones are incorporated into the economic structure as an indispensable element through their participation in mining development. That is, under initiatives by chiefs, by founding companies with the GDPL as small shareholders, local autochtones are involved in business surrounding the mining industry, through which GDPL members share in the profits. If the narrative of capital on the national/provincial level is linked with the community level, the task of the development of the latter is entrusted to local chiefs

27 The Koniambo plant is a joint venture of Konianmbo Nickel SAS with its provincial company, SMSP (51%) and the multinational mining enterprise, presently Glencore (49%) as the shareholder. The Goro plant is operated by Vale Nouvelle-Calédonie (74%) with Japanese companies SUMIC (21%) and SPMSC, a company jointly created by 3 provinces (5%) as the shareholders (Edo, 2015: 397). The Loyalty Islands Province is also participating in both ventures as a shareholder. 66 J. Edo as autorités coutumières (customary authorities). By the institutionalization of their power, where the Sénat coutumier (Customary Senate) is the top organization, salaried chiefs work as the guardians of customary rights.28 However, there is an apparent paradox on indigeneity between the regime of truth on the national/provincial level and that of the community level. In Goro, multi-national companies exploited mining grounds, from which local autochtones not only did not share in economic benefits, but suffered from environmental impacts. Against this, by founding autochthonous groups and strategically linking economic rights with environmental ones,29 customary authorities demanded the rights of local autochtones to natural resources as Chefferies minières, a newly invented term referring to chiefdoms which have land rights to mining areas. As seen before, the solid basis of indigeneity is founded on land lying in particular localities. However, their claim for rights extends to everything existing in the environmental sphere of these places, which is referred to as “l’espace de vie” (living space) (ADCK, 2009: 63). This shows not just their holistic approach, seeing their existence in a web of relationships in their environmental surroundings, but also that their claims for rights to economic resources and to the environment are inseparably related to each other. The author cannot recall hearing the term l’espace de vie in fieldwork. However, in the modern arena of the 2000s, indigenous people are well informed of internationally recognized indigenous rights to the environment and natural resources. Therefore, local autochtones can directly adapt them to their own context and protest or demand their rights. On the goal of independence, discursive practices by Kanak politicians on the national/provincial level and those by customary authorities on the community level agree and are linked. However, when autochthonous rights on the national/provincial level and those on the community level become paradoxical, their discourses diverge. The latter says, “Today, there is no consensus between politics and coutume. Politicians push mining development without considering the impact and benefit to local autochtones…but the chefferie minière have to be involved in the process of its decision making” (August 2007). On the other hand, referring to the term chefferie minière, the former says, “it doesn’t correspond to anything in Kanak culture…If the chefferie minière are only those who can benefit from a mining title, it is not Kanak cultural values. We struggled for independence…In Kanak identity, mineral resources have to serve everyone and be for the

28 In the institutionalization of custom, customary councils as the administrative organs were established in the period of the Accords from the local level of tribu (conseil de chefs de clan) and the regional level of 8 customary areas (conseils coutumier) to the national level (Sénat coutumier). As the Nouméa Accord promises legal protection for the Kanak customary right to confer the power of customary jurisdiction (JORF, 1998: Nouméa Accord: 1.1, 1.2), customary authorities have been drawing up the Code civil kanak by codifying orally transmitted customary rules (Sénat coutumier, 2007: 18, 2013, 2014). 29 Rhéébu Nùù (Eye of the country), which was founded in 2001, was active in demands for compensation and rehabilitation of environment. Their protests and mobilization of Kanaks as well as Caledonians suspended the construction of a projected chemical smelter in Goro to improve it on environmental grounds. Narratives of Kanak Identity as an Articulated Ensemble 67 development of the country” (September 2007). Their discourses reveal a discrepancy between political identity as nation and autochthonous identity on a community level. As the revendication de l’identité kanak is officially recognized in the Nouméa Accord, in the modern arena, claims for autochthonous identity and rights become conspicuous and active on the level of community rather than those of nation and ethnicity. That is, grounded on the Nouméa Accord, customary authorities demand Kanak identity in terms of autochthonous rights. As indigeneity is multifaceted, “indigenism” is multiform. Therefore, when the narrative of a nation led by politicians and that of a community led by customary authorities become irrelevant, they are disarticulated.

5. Conclusion

As identity is process, the diachronic aim of the present paper represented the historicity, struggle, and results of the revendication de l’identité kanak as an articulated ensemble by synchronically interweaving the discursive practice of people in the triple narratives of nation, culture, and community. In the decolonization movement, indigenous people had to reclaim their identity to recover their rights, of which they had been deprived by colonization. It was the process of demanding indigenous rights that let people imagine and in turn gave rise to Kanak identity. First, discourse on Kanak identity emerged from the assertion of cultural rights at the ethnicity level: they sought an identity as a cultural community in the dual mode of culture and custom. Thus, the narrative of culture is articulated with that of community since custom is culturally rooted in the community level. Such discursive formation of Kanak identity as a people in the narrative of culture is politically routed through the narrative of a nation. The indépendantistes demanded the rights to Kanak sovereignty seeking for the identity of a nation as a political community in the context of indépendance kanak: their discourses situated “indigeneity” as the axis of the “regime of truth” to delineate the rights of Kanaks as the original people. This narrative of nation is politically rooted in the narrative of community underlying “indigeneity.” With linkage to a homeland as Kanaky, the revendication foncière, the right to recover lost land, was made through discursive practice representing autochthonous identity as a primordial community. In terms of the rights to economic development, socialism for the construction of Kanaky was represented as Kanak socialism linked with custom on the community level. Thus, the knowledge/power of Kanak identity as narratives of an articulated ensemble with 3 levels was formed with indigeneity as roots and routes: roots do not necessarily mean origins or have to be authentic, but strategically important points conjoined with routes. Whether at the level of nation, ethnicity, or community, however, indigeneity tells us that opening up routes 68 J. Edo makes it possible to be articulated with roots, but not vice-versa. In short, the narratives of Kanak identity in the independence movement are embedded in a narrative of heritage. What props up Kanak “indigeneity” as a legal framework is the customary status (formerly the particular status) which secures their legitimacy and rights on the 3 levels by differentiating them from other ethnic communities. As a man of parole (word) and as independence leader, Tjibaou can be seen as the central figure of “the vehicles of power,” transmitting productive discourses on Kanak identity as “autoethnographic expression,” which circulate not only in an indigenous network but also internationally, with which people see “truth” as linked. Foreseeing Kanak identity in relation to France and Caledonians in the future, he politically, culturally, and primordially interpreted the revendication de l’identité kanak and negotiated for Kanak rights with France. In the period of the Accords, the revendication de l’identité kanak has made certain achievements in terms of rights. Kanak cultural identity at the level of ethnicity was embodied as the Tjibaou Cultural Center with the dual mode of culture and nation as a contact zone of different communities and other South Pacific regions. Kanak sovereignty in indépendance kanak changed into shared sovereignty in interdependence, in articulation with the State and other ethnic communities at the level of nation. The revendication foncière resulted in the recognition of Kanak identity based on land, and the development of customary lands is entrusted to the GDPL under the initiative of chiefs at the community level. Socialism was replaced by economic development for the construction of the pays at the level of nation, for which each Province is vested with the power to promote its own development involving local communities. However, articulation and disarticulation of these levels depend on circumstances. As discursive practice on Kanak identity shifted from the decolonization struggle to the construction of the pays charged with an economic mission, it is now inseparable from the narrative of capital through the workings of globalization. In accordance with the changes we have seen and the currents of the world, the discursive practices of people as signifying practice in the modern arena are governed by new rules, forming new discursive relations in articulation with newly emerged levels, confirming Foucault’s idea that, over time, discourses are governed by new rules in the system of discursive formation and historicized (Foucault, 1972: 164-165, 173). Thus, the revendication de l’identité kanak made as the knowledge/power of the independence movement has become historicized. In short, Kanak identity as an articulated ensemble has been reformulated. If the identity claim is inseparably related to the demand for rights, the question of “indigeneity” is inseparable from indigenous rights. On the one hand, reflecting indigenous episteme as grasping the world holistically in the web of relations, the revendication de l’identité kanak can be represented as “a complex whole” embracing the total rights of indigenous people as the collectivity. On the other, as identity is multiple, depending on which level and in what context Narratives of Kanak Identity as an Articulated Ensemble 69 these rights are asserted, indigeneity as the regime of truth is multi-faceted. In other words, what makes Kanak identity an articulated ensemble of political, cultural, and autochthonous identities is the discrepancies between “imagined communities” on the levels of nation, ethnicity, and primordiality. In the independence movement, total rights of indigenous people were demanded as inherent rights on the national level based on the UN “Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Territories and Peoples” (United Nations, 1960). In the modern arena, as indigenous rights are endorsed by the “United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples” (United Nations, 2007), local autochtones on the community level can respectively claim rights by transnationally adopting the acknowledged rights into their context. “Indigeneity both rooted in and routed through particular places” (Clifford, 2001: 469) has today extended its routes from ancestral land to the environmental space and web-sites. On a hilly open area of the Cultural Center, the statue of Tjibaou commanding the Pacific looks as if it is speaking the words “Returning to tradition, it is a myth…The search for identity… It is a permanent reformulation…Our identity lies in front of us” (Tjibaou, 1996: 185, 2005: 160). In Oceania, where environmental destruction and climate change are accelerating, how will people open up the routes of their identity in the future? A customary authority says, “Recognizing the right of autochtones is a little contribution to saving our planet…to put up the ‘garde de feu’ (fire guard) (for environmental protection)” (August 2007). If postcolonial discourse on Kanak identity represents the guardian of l’espace de vie as indigeneity, the author hopes that it would not end in an entropic narrative. Foucault points out that the group of discursive relations is not closed; nor does it exhaust the totality of meanings—rather it is open, contradictory, incomplete, and subject to change (Foucault, 1972: 125). Hall also says, “Identities are constructed within, not outside, discourse… and produced in specific historical and institutional sites within specific discursive formations and practices, by specific enunciative strategies” (Hall, 1996: 4). In this sense, the “Narratives of Kanak identity” interwoven diachronically and synchronically in a “discursive paradigm” and represented as an articulated ensemble are perpetually incomplete. It is only an ethnographic configuration of a representation of Kanak identity through hybrid textual act written by an author as the final speaking subject. If the author borrows the terms of Clifford and Foucault, they are only “partial truths” of the “regime of truth” sustaining what is seen as “true.”

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