The New Pacific Review = La Nouvelle Revue du Pacifique : Vol. 4, No. 2 : New Caledonia and Melanesian Unity : Proceedings of the international symposium on the occasion of the inauguration of the House of Melanesia Noumea, 4-5 September 2008.

Abstract

This volume of the New Pacific Review/Nouvelle Revue du Pacifique (Vol.4 No.2) is an edited English-language version of the proceedings of an international symposium on New Caledonia held at the Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement (IRD) in Noumea, on 4-5 September 2008. The original text, titled La Nouvelle- Caledonie pour /'integration melanesienne, appeared as Volume 4, Number 1 of the New Pacific Review/ Nouvelle Revue du Pacifique (Paris: L 'Harmattan, December 2008). The symposium was organized and facilitated by Paul de Deckker, Jean-Yves Faberon and Armand Hage to mark the foundation and launch of The House of Melanesia/La Maison de la Melanesie in Noumea. The mission of the House of Melanesia is to promote research in the social sciences and the humanities across Papua New Guinea and Island Melanesia (Solomons, Vanuatu, New Caledonia and Fiji) and to foster understanding and unity among the peoples and states of the South Pacific. It is indeed fortunate that the launch of the House of Melanesia/Maison de la Melanesie and the symposium on New Caledonia and Melanesian unity took place when it did. For many people did not realize that the chief instigator and co-director of the House of Melanesia, Professor Paul de Deckker, was gravely ill. He survived long enough to see the publication of La Nouvelle-Caledonie pour /'integration melanesienne, but suffered a tragic and untimely death in Paris on 7 July 2009 . This volume : New Caledonia and Melanesian Unity, which appears as Vol.4 No.2 of the New Pacific Review/La Nouvelle Revue du Pacifique is dedicated to his memory. New Caledonia and Melanesian Unity is a focused collection of contributions by leading French Pacific, Pacific Islander and Australian scholars, covering a large number of disciplines, all concerned with the position and role of New Caledonia as a Melanesian country, both internally and as an island state in the Southwest Pacific, along with Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fij i . The publication of an edited English language version of La Nouvelle-Caledonie pour /'integration melanesienne brings current French research within the purview of Anglophone readers, in the spirit of the Assises de la Recherche Frarn;aise dans le Pacifique, which took place in 2004.