To be si Nengone. To shape the world from the inside and the outside.

Aim: to show how the yam, as conceived by the si Nengone, is simultaneously situated between the invariability of the culture and the variability of the society - social foundations and dissonances - allowing the si Nengone from inside and outside the island to shape and perpetuate the Custom.
The research project examines social change in Maré (New Caledonia) in a context where local society, which until recently lived off a subsistence economy rooted in the social-agricultural organisation of the vegetative cycle of highly valued endogenous yams - and in direct contact with the top chieftaincy -, is turning towards a market economy.
The identity of the Nengone Kanak-Oceanian lies at the junction between the ‘survival’ of cultural symbols and the ‘adaptability’ of indigenous social practices in a non-indigenous environment.
The material life and social imagination of the Nengone, both on and off the island, are strongly rooted in yam culture and indigenous practices and rituals.
Finally, the existence of a permanent duality between the particular Oceanian way of thinking and that advocated by the scientific system is strongly explained by the doctoral student, who himself belongs to the society under study.