Mining and Competing Sovereignties in New Caledonia.

Mining, especially nickel mining, has a long history in New Caledonia and cannot be separated from the trajectory of this territory as a settler colony. However, the construction of mining as a political stake and resource in the New Caledonian public arenas has come surprisingly late, only emerging...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Oceania Vol. 92; no. 1; pp. 74 - 93
Autores principales: Le Meur, Pierre‐Yves, Levacher, Claire
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Wiley-Blackwell Mar2022
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
Descripción
Sumario:Mining, especially nickel mining, has a long history in New Caledonia and cannot be separated from the trajectory of this territory as a settler colony. However, the construction of mining as a political stake and resource in the New Caledonian public arenas has come surprisingly late, only emerging explicitly in the 1990s as pro‐independence parties pushed the issue to the fore in their negotiations with the French state and anti‐independence parties. Nickel mining and processing became part of the claim for sovereignty in the form of a 'resource nationalism' discourse. This paper discusses the multi‐layered nature of sovereignty through the theoretical propositions of Richard Joyce on 'competing sovereignties' (2013) to illustrate both the complexities of a decolonization situation that has lasted for 20 years and the challenges posed to sovereignty by mining.