Marie Salaün

Decolonization without a disconnection? Teaching the vernaculars in New Caledonia today

The use of the notion of ‘decolonization’, applied to indigenous peoples schooling, is somehow misleading. It refers to a certain period, namely the colonial period, which officially ended in New Caledonia in 1946, then a French colony and now a French overseas territory. It also refers to contemporary efforts to address the colonial legacy. It thus minimizes the fact that post-coloniality shaped a radically different education from its colonial counterparts. The paper aims to question this ‘problematic temporality’: though the recognition of indigenous languages and culture is an important aspect of ‘decolonization’, it might not encompass it. The paper addresses some ongoing reforms, which witness the implementation of Kanak languages in formal education and ipso facto recognize linguistic diversity as a key element for the decolonization of the New Caledonian school system: do they actually lead to a recovery of sovereignty, and what kind of sovereignty are we then talking about? The announced purposes of what constitutes a radical shift in the former French monolingual dogma are threefold: it is intended to facilitate, together with the efforts made by families, the transmission of the linguistic and cultural heritage; it is expected to improve the academic performance of those whose mother tongue is the vernacular language, by promoting their emotional and intellectual development and strengthening their linguistic skills; it is expected to favor the emergence of a renewed social bond between communities. In the light of the persistent local resistances to the recognition of Kanak languages as languages of education, the paper demonstrates that instead of being congruent, these official goals assigned to the reforms are contradictory, revealing what is really at stake when the notion of ‘decolonization’ is taken seriously.

Vernacular and culturally based education in Oceania today: articulating global, national and local agendas

Much research has focused on a linguistic view of vernacular or culturally based education programmes, while the political aspects of creating such programmes have been less frequently addressed. Throughout Oceania, formal schooling is linked to the colonial encounter, and although the legacy of colonial education continues to shape current educational initiatives, school reforms are thus part of the efforts to reverse ongoing experiences of colonialism. Using a critical approach, and paying attention to the political situations that shape educational reforms, our article focuses on the tensions that make such reforms difficult to implement: tensions between State logics and indigenous claims, between ‘equal opportunity’ in school and discrimination based on race or culture; and between the various motives of vernacular education (patrimonial, political, pedagogical).

From ‘primitive mentality’ to ‘clash of cultures’: stereotypes and indigenous underachievement in New Caledonian schools

The archipelago located in the South Pacific known as New Caledonia is part of the ‘confetti’ of the French colonial empire. Violent uprisings in the 1980s revealed that the impact of colonization had a long‐lasting traumatic effect on the aboriginal Melanesian people: the Kanaks. As indigenous school failure became visible, educational claims became a key issue of Kanak sovereignist struggles. Over the last 30 years the question of inequalities in New Caledonian schools has almost always been attributed to cultural factors. Rooted in a philosophical and anthropological tradition that postulates a radical Kanak otherness, contemporary analysis of failure in school seems incapable of overcoming this stereotype. This paper examines possible reorientations for a revival of educational sociology in the New Caledonian context. L’archipel du Pacifique Sud connu sous le nom de Nouvelle‐Calédonie fait partie des «confettis» de l’Empire colonial français. Au cours des années 1980, des affrontements violents ont révélé que le choc de la colonisation avait constitué un traumatisme durable pour la population mélanésienne originelle: les Kanak. Alors que devenait visible l’échec scolaire autochtone, les revendications éducatives sont devenues un élément‐clef des luttes souverainistes kanak. Depuis trente ans, l’interrogation sur les inégalités scolaires en Nouvelle‐Calédonie a presque toujours incriminé des déterminants culturels. Enracinés dans une tradition philosophique et anthropologique qui postule une altérité radicale des kanak, les explications contemporaines de l’échec scolaire semblent incapables de dépasser ce stéréotype. Cet article présente de possibles réorientations pour un renouveau de la sociologie de l’éducation dans le contexte néo‐calédonien.

L’Océanie peut-elle être décolonisée ?

Invisible dans l’historiographie de la colonisation, tout comme dans celle de la decolonisation, la Nouvelle-Caledonie appartient a cet espace geographique oublie du monde colonise, l’Oceanie. Les situations coloniales diverses qui se rencontrent dans cette partie du globe, une fois rappele leur contexte historique et politique, permettent d’apprehender le sort specifique de la population kanak de Nouvelle-Caledonie sous un jour nouveau. Longtemps victime d’une colonisation de peuplement, la sortie du colonialisme, comme le suggerent les cas de l’Australie et de la Nouvelle-Zelande, engage pour le peuple kanak bien plus qu’un surcroit d’autonomie ou le recouvrement d’une souverainete nationale.