Politics of imaging New Caledonia

Advertisements for the international tourism market are examined using postcolonial discourse analysis to determine how tourism promoters represent New Caledonia. This article illustrates how the images used to promote New Caledonia on international markets continue to be a political statement that constructs the territory as a French enclave in the Pacific not shared with Kanak people and several minorities. The article demonstrates that these representations continue to translate unequal power relations that most of the French in New Caledonia (supported by tourism and its operators) wish to maintain with the Indigenous people. These representations also run counter to government decisions to restore the identity of Kanak people and to improve their economic well-being on the basis of tourism development.

Research highlights► Representations of island destinations are governed by political ideology. ► Tourism supports hegemonic relations with local people in less developed countries. ► Support for minority entrepreneurial involvement in tourism is still lacking. ► Indigenous people continue to be represented as incapable of embracing modernity. ► The Kanak of New Caledonia continue to suffer from all of the above.