Multidisciplinary approaches to contemporary politics in the Pacific. Sovereignties, political constructions and cultural connections

This theme concerns the ways, intentions and means by which contemporary politics are expressed and affirmed in the Pacific. We will analyse the way in which Pacific societies envisage the global connections in which their populations find themselves involved through the processes of political and cultural construction, in the light of the issues inherent in a post-colonial context. The approach will be multidisciplinary, dealing with data from a wide range of fields of knowledge: the political and the economic, the social and the religious, the cultural and the environmental.this theme concerns the ways, intentions and means by which contemporary politics are expressed and affirmed in the Pacific. We will analyse the way in which Pacific societies envisage the global connections in which their populations find themselves involved through the processes of political and cultural construction, in the light of the issues inherent in a post-colonial context. The approach will be multidisciplinary, dealing with data from different fields of knowledge: political and economic, social and religious, cultural and environmental.

The common objective of the issues we will be dealing with is to focus on the links, circulations, connections and confluences that reveal proximities, rapprochements or extensions between the countries and territories of the Pacific, and between the latter and the neighbouring regional powers as well as the former or still sovereign powers (Asia - including China in particular, but also Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan - Australia and New Zealand, the United States and France). The upheaval in the balance of power between neighbouring countries brought about by China's emergence on the regional and international scene prompts us to question the significance of the so-called Indo-Pacific strategy, which aims to elevate this part of the world to the status of a major geopolitical area. The multiple consequences of China's influence on the countries of the Pacific add to the already wide range of long-standing links between Asia and the Pacific.

The convergence and intensification of multiple interests in the Pacific is of prime concern to French research, due to the persistence of three overseas collectivities (COM: French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna). These Pacific territories are a key part of France's Indo-Pacific strategy, and have become one of the priorities of its international action. Hence the importance of studying these contemporary issues in the light of their past formulations, colonial histories and political and cultural legacies. The ways in which sovereignty is exercised and the questions it raises up to the aspirations for independence are at the heart of the proposed research. Particular attention will be paid to the historical and contemporary meaning of the ‘link to France’. Asia-Pacific relations in French-speaking territories will be examined through the question of labour migration during the colonial period, within a broad historical framework, referring to both ancient and recent migrations and extending into research into the establishment of Asian communities in most of the Pacific archipelagos. The study of these contemporary realities must also take account of the long term, insofar as mobility and migration in these island worlds have been sources of major social upheaval in earlier periods, the echoes of which still make sense today.