“Fortunately, I have my field”: What place for family farming in development strategies, from the household to the country scale in New Caledonia?
Séverine Bouard, Human geographer (PhD), Institut agronomique néo-calédonien (Institute of Agronomy, New Caledonia) (IAC)
Date: Thursday 22 August 2024
Time: 16.00 – 17.00
Where: Curtin University, Building 418, Room 305
I will examine the main transformations and the ways that development through commodification and globalisation have influenced Kanak family farming. First, I will outline the historical foundations of Kanak family farming. Then I will describe the transformations that have affected family farming: changes in the functions associated with Kanak family farming, the magnitude, the technical evolutions and the methods of deriving value from products obtained from agricultural activities, hunting and fishing, and how they are embedded in wider relationships of exchange and territorial anchoring. I will demonstrate the sustainability of the non-commercial dimension of these activities, and the contribution of this non-commercial dimension to local diets. I will conclude with lessons we can derive from the practice of family farming in order to think about its place and its contribution to the rural New Caledonian world and more broadly in future economic models. The presentation will be based on a selection of quantitative and qualitative studies of households that are facing rapid transformation with the intensification of mining activities and climate change.
About the speaker:
Séverine BOUARD is a human geographer (PhD). In close collaboration with a large network of experts from France, Australia and Canada, she has participated in or led more than twenty research programmes on Pacific indigenous livelihoods and natural resource management (water, wildlife or mineral resources). She has studied the commodification of nature and modernisation trends, and the interface with indigenous discourses that foreground attachment to water and land and sense of place. By focusing on the trajectories of people and territories, she highlights social change at work. Since 2008, she has produced more than 20 refereed journal articles and chapters and is the co-author of 4 books.
Recent publications:
Bouard, S., Apithy, L., Guyard, S., Sourisseau, JM. (2024). “Fortunately, I Have My Field”: Changes and Permanencies in Kanak Family Farming. In: Kowasch, M., Batterbury, S.P.J. (eds) Geographies of New Caledonia-Kanaky. Springer, Cham., 61-70. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49140-5
Bouard S. & V. Boudjema. (2023). “Beyond the Enclave: Workforce mobility and livelihoods in a New Caledonia mining region”, G. C. Guzmán, M. Himley, and D. Brereton (Eds.), Mining, Mobility, and Social Change in the Global South: Regional Perspectives, London: Routledge, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003313236
Peytavi, O., Bouard, S., Le Meur, P-Y., Lejars, C. (2023). Sociotechnical tinkering with freshwater supply: the co-creation of water knowledge in New Caledonia, Grassroots -Journal of Political Ecology, Journal of Political Ecology 30(1), 413–423. https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.5289
Leopold, A., Drouin, J., Drohnu, E., Kaplan, H., Wamejonengo, J., Bouard, S. (2021). Fire-fallow agriculture in Mare Loyalty Island: A sustainable cropping system for maintaining organic carbon in Gibbsic Ferralsol (New Caledonia, South West Pacific), Regional Environmental Change, Vol. 21, n°4. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-021-01814-x
Bouard S. Apithy L., Guyard S. (2018). Family farming in contemporary Kanak society, In Bosc, P.-M., Sourisseau, J.-M., Bonnal, P., Gasselin, P., Valette, E., Bélières, J.-F. (Eds.), Diversity of Family Farming Around the World, Existence, Transformations and Possible Futures of Family Farms, Quae Springer International Publishing.
Pacific Livelihoods 