The compensation arenas in south New Caledonia. Minescape, governmentality and politics

Abstract

In the five last decades, the massive industrialization of mining extraction, through technological developments, the shift to more open-pit mining, and more recently automation, has reduced the amount of labour required by companies and led to the demise of the model of the company town. Since the 1990s, the internalization of environmental externalities under the pressure of environmentalist concerns has put neighbouring/affected communities and their allies at the centre stage. These combined trends have generated a shift from the social relations of production to the social relations of compensation as the core issue structuring conflicts and arrangements within mining arenas. In New Caledonia (NC), compensation has only recently entered the mining policy debate whereas the notion itself has long been discussed in the field of Melanesian social anthropology. Compensation has become a policy tool for dealing with the broader issue of mining environmental and social impacts. In New Caledonia, ideas and models of compensation have developed in a variety of ways, illustrating disconnections between how public institutions, mining companies and local populations deal with its conception, qualification and measurement. This contribution will explore the “compensation arena” in New Caledonia stressing the tension between governmentality and the practice of politics triggered by compensation policies, and its effects on the management of mining landscapes.