The Boakaine Mine in New Caledonia: A Local Development Issue?

Mining and Competing Sovereignties in New Caledonia

“…In New Caledonia, local agreements involving development operators (not only in the mining sector but also in tourism) and local populations, especially Kanak communities and their customary and political representatives, have a long but not always visible history, with a blossoming in the 1990s and 2000s (Demmer 2017b; Horowitz 2012; Le Meur 2017b; Le Meur et al 2013b; Levacher 2016b, 2017). These agreements have always resulted from a sequence of conflict and negotiation in which government bodies were not always active and visible participants.…”

“…Locally‐signed agreements express turning points and embody ‘critical junctures’ (Mahoney 2000): they produce new deals and endorse a founding role, be it as a response to a conflict generated by a new project (or a new situation in the course of an existing project) or result from the cumulative impacts of a long history of disputes and bilateral arrangements. Mining conflicts have also displayed from the 1990s a tendency toward a widening of the arena of actors involved in the negotiation (Bouard et al 2018; Demmer 2017b; Le Meur 2017b; Levacher 2016a). This trend suggests that publicity is part of the strategy of negotiation adopted by local populations, which does not necessarily contradict the confidentiality of parts of the signed impact and benefit agreements (IBAs).…”