A brief note on Mangareva

Before delving into the topic, we thought a brief note on Mangareva would be useful to you. Mangareva was the first of the three locations we chose to gather testimonies for this 12-episode first podcast series. It is situated 1600km (994 miles) away from Tahiti, 400-600km (between 250 to 375miles) away from Moruroa and Fangataufa, the nuclear testings sites where the 193 French nuclear tests were conducted (1966-1996), 46 atmospheric tests and 147 underground tests. An ecological web itself, Mangareva surprises with its tall mountains and its fifty shades of blue that are reminiscent of many of the Tuamotu atolls. Mangareva is part of the Gambier archipelago, with the most notable neighbor islands of Aukena, Akamaru and Taravai, saturated with monuments and ruins, an enduring architectural testimony of the Catholic mission and Indigenous labor. The best introductory works to apprehend this world would be Te Rangi Hiroa’s book Ethnology of Mangareva (1933) published shortly after the Bishop Museum's 1931 expedition and Père Laval’s Mémoires pour servir à l’Histoire de Mangareva 1836-1874 ère chrétienne. 

When approaching Mangareva, the contrast of colors is gripping and a simple glance at the wide lagoon surrounding the island makes you wonder about our ancestors' reaction when first sighting these islands from the ocean. Whether you are aware of it or not, you are almost immediately immersed within the nuclear-testing landscapes, you land at the airport of Totegegie, built by the Center of Pacific Testings and first inaugurated in 1967. It is perhaps the remaining and most visible infrastructure inherited from the CEP period, the two other most ‘’iconic’’ lieux de mémoire (to reuse an term coined by Pierre Nora) were torn down in the last decade or so (more on this later). The military presence was first felt during that construction phase but interestingly a first phase of scouting was initiated in 1962 where the French authorities announced that a rocket launch site would be established, a coverage for the establishment of a support base for the Pacific Testing Centre. 

Mangareva stood out to us as an interesting place to start with this podcast project for a host of different reasons: its use as a military rear base, its geographic proximity with the nuclear testing sites, its fraught and complicated relationship with Tahiti which now commingled with the 30 year of nuclear legacies.

More to come!