Presentation short abstract

This paper will explore colonial legacies in contemporary Indigenous-led relocation projects on the east coast of New Caledonia. It will investigate the role of historical processes in the construction of risks and the political dynamics maintaining Kanak families ‘at risk’.

Presentation long abstract

Climate vulnerability affecting Indigenous Kanak communities on the east coast of New Caledonia (Western Pacific) is inextricably linked to the history of forced displacement and the deep socio-political legacies of settler colonialism. In this French overseas territory, climate-induced relocation projects exemplify the connections between colonial legacies, ongoing decolonization (Trépied, 2025) and climate change issues. The challenges certain Kanak families face when relocating to safer areas lie at the intersection of a land tenure system that limits access to available space, structural inequalities impacting the political and economic capacities of customary and local authorities, as well as the 'discursive politics' (Mikulewicz, 2020) of institutional adaptation models that perpetuate ‘Western’ ways of valuing risks (Sultana, 2019; Eriksen et al. 2021).

Through multi-sited fieldworks involving 54 semi-structured interviews with institutional actors and customary authorities conducted between 2024 and 2025, this paper will analyse how colonial history has created relationships of dependency by concentrating political, economic and land ownership power away from local communities (Marino & Ribot, 2012). Indeed, several Kanak families are asking for institutions to develop the land and construct the infrastructures necessary for relocation since 2010. Drawing on critical vulnerability perspectives (Cameron, 2012; Jacobs, 2019; Barnett, 2020), we will question in how far delays to the completion of customary relocation projects — which could be described as 'forced immobility' — are the outcome of power relations, historical legacies and structures of domination. These are perpetuated through institutional prioritisation and adaptation paradigms which struggle to include relocation on the political agenda.