Paths of Declonization Today: Perspectives from the Pacific Islands
Les chemins de la décolonisation aujourd'hui : perspectives du Pacifique insulaire
Résumé
Contemporary Oceania is simultaneously marked by the persistence, birth and resurgence of struggles for self-determination. The separatist, autonomist, regionalist and “native” demands that rub shoulders there (without excluding one another) evolve in keeping with the reconfiguration of local political fields. This article seeks to understand the very diverse manners in which these separatist mobilizations have been given expression by focusing on the various levels and fields that determine them: colonial history, the demographic weight of native populations, the recent emergence of a culture of apology, recognition of indigenous peoples law at the international level, contemporary forms of capitalism and the identity-based demands they favor, the ideology of “less state”, “custom” as a form of regulation and so on. The idea is to hold together this bundle of opportunities. Drawing upon the theoretical model of world-systems anthropology developed by Jonathan Friedman, the present article examines the influence of the colonial experience on the postcolonial imaginary, the weight of regional and international contexts in the choice of types of sovereignty and, finally, the role played by an ever less “visible” – but still just as present – state. ?