The Transformations of the « Métis Question » in New Caledonia (1853-2009)
In light of the unprecedented emergence in 2009 of census categories allowing the identification of « métis », this article provides a fresh review of the ways in which « métis » have been problematized and represented in New Caledonia since the beginning of the colonial era. Outlining the principal evolutions of the « métis question » in public debate, the article shows that, despite their assimilation within the colonial legal categories of citizen and subject, métis in New Caledonia have been far from socially invisible and have been in fact the subject of perennial debate. Particular attention is paid to the transformations that occurred in the colonial era (before 1946), during the violent « events » of the 1980s and in the wake of the Matignon (1988) and Nouméa (1998) Accords. Rather than causing the métis question to disappear, as has occurred in other former French colonies, the contemporary decolonisation process in New Caledonia has given a new and singular meaning to evocations of métissage and expressions of métis identity.