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Archaeology, Francophone, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, French Polynesia, archéologie, Francophone, Vanuatu, Nouvelle-Calédonie, Fidji, Polynésie Française
Abstract:
On 24 November 2016, an international workshop bringing together francophone early-career researchers and practitioners currently active in the field of Pacific archaeology was organised at The Australian National University. As access to opportunities for transnational exchange and representation of their work is not always easy for this group, the aim was to provide an occasion for the ECRs to present their work in English to the Australia-based academic audience of Pacific scholars.Currently, anglophone research is dominant in the region, in both academic centres of the Pacific rim and local institutions, where the methods and approaches advocated stem from a common tradition, while training and dissemination of research results use the shared language of English. Nonetheless, although less frequent, francophone approaches to Pacific archaeology have been present since the very early days of the discipline at the end of the nineteenth century, along with other non-anglophone traditions. Given the history of French colonial presence in the region, this tradition has endured, but indeed evolved and did not always remain in isolation. In particular, some members of the generation that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, following José Garanger's footsteps, have progressively managed to engage in several international projects and to get their research widely exposed and recognised.After several years without the arrival of new graduates, the past 10 years has seen an influx of newly qualified francophone archaeologists working in the Pacific, bringing fresh perspectives and changing the profile of practitioners in the field (Figure 1). Indeed, while the history of the discipline had been dominated by men and by French metropolitan archaeologists, the new cohort includes as many women as men and almost half of the group originates from the Pacific Islands. Most of them are also able to work within local institutions and to participate directly in the sociocultural contributions of archaeology in the islands. In an effort to promote a better integration of this group in the regional research sphere, this paper consists of short reports focusing on one aspect of the ECRs current work.
