Pacific Islands

Abstract

This chapter explores how Pacific islanders have the desire to be present and acknowledged within the global system. The first part provides an overview of colonial imperialism in the region. Decades of colonial and economic imperialism have capitalized the natural and human resources influencing the course of social change in the region. In all the colonies of the Pacific, plantations and mines have had a strong impact on the islands including the expropriation of lands, the arrival of foreign workers, and in general all the long-term ecological consequences. The second part of the chapter focusses on the ways conflict over markets, trade routes, the supply of labour, and control over strategic commodities might be progressively halted. Looking at the contextual particularities of economic imperialism in the Pacific Islands allow us to analyse the various forms through which the global economic system is articulated in a specific local context, focusing on the different ways in which social actors resist, transform, and domesticate the hegemonic elements coming from outside. Capitalism, in particular mining activity, is not necessarily perceived by indigenous peoples as an antagonistic by definition, as often emerges in mainstream Western environmental discourse. For some communities it is a means to achieve economic, social, and cultural goals. Analysing mining activity from the lens of indigenous eco-cosmologies, the goal is to identify an alternative space to the rigid dichotomy between subjection and resistance.

The disregarded weight of the ancestors: Honouring the complexities and cultural subtleties of islandscape

“…Their descendants gave rise to a way of life so tightly tied to land and cultivation that the Kanak culture is also known as the 'yam civilization' (Haudricourt, 1964). The mineral richness of the archipelago has been an appeal for European colonization since the 19 th Century, and today, more than ever, is crucial for the Indigenous Kanak people's struggle for independence (Gentilucci, 2022;Le Meur & Levacher, 2022).…”