Kanak mining nationalism and “positioning” of mining and metallurgic companies in Nouvelle-Calédonie

Abstract

This article aims to explain that the mine in New Caledonia is for the Kanaks a “grassroots experience” of a decolonization initiated at the same time in institutions since about thirty years. It reminds the steps and the shapes of nickel conquest by independentists, which is the main economic resource of the archipelago. It highlights that the control of a multinational – SMSP – has profoundly reconfigured the mining sector, imposing new giant metallurgical firms against local export of ore firms. Based on contemporary mining landscape description, it examines as a mirror effect the singular decolonization situation going on in this ‘Overseas Country’ at the time of self-determination referendums closing the emancipation process acted in the “Nouméa agreement” of 1998.