Kanak in Québec
This paper explores the experiences of young Kanak people from New Caledonia who have traveled to Québec for training in mining careers at the CEGEPS of Rouyn and Sept-Îles. Interviews with these indigenous youths provide a glipse into the subjective aspects of a training experience abroad. Their stories reveal how they were each individually affected by a social, economic and political climate that they experienced as uncertain. Outlined here are the new working conditions of a generation whose destiny is linked to the development of nickel mining. The Canadian experience also provides Kanak youth with a sense of reflexivity about their own identities as indigenous people. This reflexivity gives them an opportunity to rethink their earier academic experiences in New Caledonia. In doing so, they attain a fresh perspective, rooted in their own experience, on the collective choice that now faces the Kanak people, between the struggle for the independence of a prospective Kanaky and advocacy for indigenous rights.