WAR AND OTHER MEANS VIOLENCE AND POWER IN HOUAÏLOU (NEW CALEDONIA) WAR AND OTHER MEANS VIOLENCE AND POWER IN HOUAÏLOU (NEW CALEDONIA) MICHEL NAEPELS STATE, SOCIETY AND GOVERNANCE IN MELANESIA SERIES Published by ANU Press The Australian National University Acton ACT 2601, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is also available online at press.anu.edu.au National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Creator: Naepels, Michel, author. Title: War and other means : violence and power in Houaïlou (New Caledonia) / Michel Naepels ; Rachel Gomme, translator. ISBN: 9781760461539 (paperback) 9781760461546 (ebook) Series: State, society and governance in Melanesia. Notes: Translation of: Conjurer la guerre: Violence et pouvoir à Houaïlou (Nouvelle-Calédonie). Subjects: Political violence--New Caledonia--Houaïlou. Violence--New Caledonia--Houaïlou. Kanaka (New Caledonian people) Kanaka (New Caledonian people)--Politics and government. Kanaka (New Caledonian people)--Government relations. Minorities--Government policy--New Caledonia--Houaïlou. Houaïlou (New Caledonia)--Ethnic relations. Houaïlou (New Caledonia)--Politics and government. Other Creators/Contributors: Gomme, Rachel, translator. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Cover design and layout by ANU Press. Cover photograph from Deborah Adam flic.kr/p/ W3Ww8W. This edition © 2017 ANU Press French original edition © 2013, Conjurer la guerre. Violence et pouvoir à Houaïlou (Nouvelle-Calédonie), Éditions de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales ISBN 978- 2-7132-2376-1 The translation was carried out with the financial support of Institut de Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur les enjeux sociaux, the laboratory of excellence Tepsis carried by the EHESS, bearing the reference ANR-11-LABX-0067, and Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme. For Ulysse and Isidore Contents List of figures and tables . ix Acknowledgements . xi Introduction . 1 1 . Lineage Rivalry and Colonial Control: The Dynamics of War in a Globalised Space . 9 2 . Objects of War . 71 3 . The Chiefdoms within the Colonial Order . 111 4 . Post-indigénat Mobilisations . .. 161 5 . The Subjectivity of Violent Action . 207 6 . The Construction and Fiction of Consensus . 235 Conclusion . 281 References . 287 List of figures and tables Figure 1. Detail of map showing ‘the dwelling of George Wright’ (1876). .18 Figure 2. Extract from the genealogy of the Néjâ family ...........63 Figure 3. ‘Néporo lineage’. 65 Table 1. Chronological and genealogical relationships between some of the individuals referred to in this text ..............99 Table 2. Mobilisation for the First World War, by district .........119 Table 3. Mobilisation for the colonial war in Koné and Hienghène. 123 Figure 4. Award of decorations in April 1918: ‘The stage’ .........128 Figure 5. Award of decorations in April 1918: ‘The frenzied pilou’ ..128 Table 4. Principal categories and results of 1911 census in Houaïlou. 133 Figure 6. Plan of the partial leper colony of Kananu .............150 Figure 7. The Mandaoué chiefdom in the Livre du centenaire, 1953 ..170 Figure 8. Genealogical identification of some of the accused related to high chief Apupia in 1955 ....................182 ix Acknowledgements I would not have been able to conduct the research presented in this book had it not been for my post as researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (National Center for Scientific Research, CNRS) and the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, EHESS), in three successive laboratories: the SHADYC (Sociology, History and Anthropology of Cultural Dynamics, now the Norbert Elias Center), GTMS (Genesis and Transformation of Social Worlds) and IRIS (Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Social Issues). In addition to their support, I received grants for my fieldwork in New Caledonia from ORSTOM (Office of Overseas Scientific and Technical Research), LACITO (Languages and Civilisations with Oral Traditions, CNRS), ITSO research group (Identities and Changes in Oceanian Societies, CNRS), CORDET (Co-ordinating Committee for Research in Overseas Departments and Territories, Ministry of Overseas Departments and Territories), the ESK program (Study of Kanak Societies, Ministry of Culture), the Anthropological Heritage Mission (Ministry of Culture), NCESC research group (New Caledonia: Contemporary Social Issues, CNRS), and the ANR (National Research Agency) program ‘Transformation of wars’. Many scholars offered encouragement, support and criticism. I am especially grateful to Jean Bazin, my thesis supervisor, and Patrick Williams, my postdoctoral supervisor. Meeting Alban Bensa and Jean- Claude Rivierre was also of crucial importance. I owe much to the work and discussions conducted in the CNRS research group ‘New Caledonia: Contemporary Social Issues’. The work of Christine Demmer, Isabelle Merle, Adrian Muckle, Hélène Nicolas, Marie Salaün and Benoît Trépied were particularly valuable sources of reflection in my attempt to articulate different historical scales. I owe special thanks to Christine Hamelin and Christine Salomon, with whom I have been able to share my doubts and my difficulties since 1991, and whose works are an essential source xi WAR AnD OTheR MeAnS of inspiration. I am also grateful to Dorothée Dussy, Isabelle Grangaud and Bernard Vienne. Étienne Balibar and Yves Duroux made decisive contributions to the writing of this book. Finally, I am grateful to Julie Biro for her invaluable reading of earlier versions of this text and for her consistent encouragement and support. In New Caledonia, my work benefited from my interactions with a number of institutions, particularly the Agence pour le développement de la culture kanake (Kanak Cultural Development Agency), the Agence pour le développement rural et l’aménagement foncier (Rural Development and Land Planning Agency), and the Archives of New Caledonia. Above all, I remember the faces of my Kanak interlocutors – those singular combinations of marginality, power and powerlessness, of knowledge and ignorance, of truth and morality, of kindness and harshness, which initially constitute what I understand as ‘Houaïlou’; some of them are cited in the text. I had the good fortune to build lasting warm and even close relationships with a number of people, especially Narcisse and Marie Kaviyöibanu; Maurice and Suzanne Mèèvâ and their children Édouard, Yvonne, Charley, Natacha, Viviane, Paul, Fabrice, Jeanne and Ludovic; Louis and Josyane Mapou; Willy Bwérhéxéu; Yvon Mârâhëë; Georges Mandaoué; and Joseph Wéma Nirikani; without forgetting Jean-Luc Karé, who was killed in Houaïlou as I was reading the proofs for this book. My debt to them is incalculable. Huge thanks to Françoise, Étienne and Jeanne Balibar; Karin and Adam Biro; Annette Ungewitter and Fabien Von Nagel, as well as the Fondation des Treilles where I spent a study period in June 2007: they provided me with the best possible conditions for writing the various chapters of this text. Lastly, Rachel Gomme, the translator of the book, and Justine Molony, the copyeditor, did wonderful work: I am enormously grateful to them. xii Introduction They say that they foster disorder in all its forms. Confusion troubles violent debates disarray upsets disturbances incoherences irregularities divergences complications disagreements discords clashes polemics discussions contentions brawls dispute conflicts routs débâcles cataclysms disturbances quarrels agitation turbulence conflagrations chaos anarchy. Monique Wittig, Les Guérillères, translated by David Le Vay, Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2007, p. 93. A political anthropology of civil conflict This book analyses the conventions of the use of violence in managing a wide range of conflicts, in a colonial and subsequently a postcolonial context, taking occasions of resorting to violence, segmentary disputes and internal wars as a central theme, and a lens through which to analyse social relations in Houaïlou, New Caledonia. In short, as Michel Foucault suggested, I want to ask: ‘Can war serve as a useful tool for analysing relations of power?’ (Foucault 2003, p. 18). Through this approach, I hope to make visible a set of rationales for action deployed by the inhabitants of this region, the historical context of the problems they face and the categories of analysis that can be used to describe them. Examining social relations through the lens of conflict and segmentarity should thus make it possible to counter ‘an implicit definition of anthropology that identifies it de facto with a suspension of the political’ (Loraux 2006, p. 50). Nicole Loraux demonstrates how productive this approach can be in her article ‘Ares in the family’, a theme to which she returns in The Divided City, where she develops her analysis of stásis, ‘internecine war installed in the heart of the city’ (p. 35). 1 WAR AnD OTheR MeAnS In his 1976 lectures at the Collège de France, Foucault argues, in opposition to juridical discourse, which is based on the sovereignty of the ruler and the subject’s obligation of obedience, that there is a need to make space for a non-state discourse that reintroduces the complexity of real actions, confrontation and the defence of the rights and interests of the individual. Taking into