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Recherche et décolonisation en Nouvelle-Calédonie contemporaine : lectures croisées | Benoît Trépied - 21 September 2011

An article by Benoît Trépied entitled «Recherche et décolonisation en Nouvelle-Calédonie contemporaine : lectures croisées», has been published in the Revue d’Histoire des sciences Humaines in August 2011.

Abstract

The French Territory of New Caledonia is currently involved in an unprecedented process of decolonisation which deeply transforms methodologies, objects, and problematics of social scientists doing fieldwork in this Oceanian archipelago. Although the issue of « the decolonisation of research », which created great debates and controversies throughout Australia and the Anglophone Pacific, did not reach New Caledonia for a long period of time, the French Territory has now become the very place where social, financial and intellectual conditions of research are being discussed and renegotiated between local, French and international scholars, government officials and political leaders. The Kanak political uprising of the 1980s also had a major impact on the opening of new perspectives for research, including studies on historical and colonial dynamics, politics, and interracial relationships. Not only did this political uprising shake the traditional borders of disciplines in social sciences : it also created a tremendous change in academic and non-academic representations on the « colonial legacy » in New Caledonia.

Reference

Benoît Trépied, « Recherche et décolonisation en Nouvelle-Calédonie : lectures croisées », Revue d’histoire des sciences humaines, n°24, août 2011, pp. 159-187.