Unsettling ‘we’re all mixed-race

Métis.se/colonial futurity, settler colonialism and the countering of Kanak sovereignty

Bibliographic Data

ID6150520
AuthorsAnaïs Duong-Pedica (0000-0002-6008-0968, ISNI: 0000000122358415 Åbo Akademi University, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume25
Issue3
Pages211-243
Publication date2022-12-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of Francophone Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1368-2679 • E-ISSN: 1758-9142
PublisherIntellect (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1386/ijfs_00051_1
OpenAlexW4375815336
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited20

This article aims to uncover the colonial character of the statement ‘on est tous métis’ (‘we’re all mixed-race’) in Kanaky/New Caledonia, a racially and politically polarized space where there is an ongoing struggle for independence led by Indigenous Kanak people. It uses data gathered in semi-structured interviews with self-identified ‘mixed-raced’ people during a six-month stay in Kanaky/New Caledonia before and after the November 2018 referendum for independence. It also uses ethnographic material and, more specifically, encounters with the figure of the ‘mixed-race’ person in political debates, campaigns as well as art and media that signal an investment in the idea that, in Kanaky/New Caledonia, ‘we are all mixed-race’. The article exposes the political discourse of multiracialism as exclusionary and as a mechanism of Indigenous disappearance in the settler colonial context. It also sheds light on the way in which settler anxiety feeds the multiracial discourse. In challenging and deconstructing the orientations towards a multiracial or métis.se future, that individuals and institutions imagine, wish or advocate for, the article aims to call for a desolidarization from modes of thinking and being that support the French colonial project, even when it masks itself as inclusive

Colonialism · Context (archaeology · Independence (probability theory · Indigenous · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Sovereignty · Gender Studies · History · Island Studies and Pacific Affairs · Law · Multilingual Education and Policy · New Caledonia Indigenous Studies

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