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Locality, Mobility and Governmentality in Colonial/Postcolonial N ew C aledonia: The case of the Kouare tribe ( xûâ Xârâgwii ), T hio ( Cöö )
Author(s) -
Le Meur PierreYves
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
oceania
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.356
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1834-4461
pISSN - 0029-8077
DOI - 10.1002/ocea.5009
Subject(s) - colonialism , context (archaeology) , tribe , indigenous , diaspora , settlement (finance) , sociology , power (physics) , ethnology , dialectic , anthropology , gender studies , geography , archaeology , ecology , philosophy , theology , physics , quantum mechanics , world wide web , computer science , payment , biology
The colonial history of N ew C aledonia has been one of dispossession, alienation, and racial segregation. Indigenous people did not experience a life of all‐embracing confinement and immobility. Instead, K anak localities were historically shaped by the interplay of colonial projects, ideas, tensions, power relations, practices, representations, values, norms, and emotions. Based on the example of T hio, located on the south‐east coast of N ew C aledonia, this article explores these transformations, focusing on processes of localization and mobility in the colonial and postcolonial eras. The first section focuses on the encounter with and the interplay between different organisations in T hio: the missionary, mining, pastoral, and administrative frontiers. The second section explores the multilayered history of the landscape and settlement patterns in X ârâgwii/ K ouare (a tribe located in the mountainous part of T hio), and the third section analyses the interplay of locality and mobility since W orld W ar II . The final section examines the ‘invention’ of the tribe as part of colonial governmental projects. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the meaning of this evolving dialectic in the current context of decolonization.