Christine Demmer is an anthropologist at the CNRS (Centre Norbert Elias in Marseille, France). She works on New Caledonia since the 90s. After working on the evolution of the aboriginal political model (the chiefdoms) in connection with the Kanak’s independence claims, she now studies the contemporary logic of social cohesion in New Caledonia, where the country has high political autonomy but no sovereignty. New Caledonia is confronted to an intensification of the exploitation of its natural resources by transnational companies. Her work focuses on the claims and the identity policies, with some being linked to the mining activities. She published many articles on social mobilization linked to the control of Nickel in New Caledonia. One of her articles, “ De la diversité des enjeux du nickel pour les Kanak aujourd’hui”, was published in 2015 in the issue 37-38 of Ethnies, that she co-edited. She is also completing, in coordination with B. Trépied, a collective work on the institutional recognition of the Kanak cultural specificity: “La coutume kanak dans l’État. Perspectived colonials et postcoloniales sur la Nouvelle-Calédonie”, to be published in 2016.