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Waning Customs: Culture and Politics with the Advent of The Neoliberal Trend in the South Pacific The post-September 11,2001 years have been characterized in Melanesia by the direct re-engagement of the former colonial powers (Australia and New Zealand) and by the obligation imposed on the young Oceanic states to implement neoliberal political and economic “reforms”. An “arc of instability” supposedly stretches from Timor to Fiji, with a string of “failed states” of which the dereliction can only be treated by military intervention and the establishment of structural adjustment plans considered as a cure-all. This article sheds light on this turning point in international relations and undertakes to analyze its local repercussions with respect to traditions, in a context in which Melanesian societies and cultures are now regarded with an openly critical eye by the former colonial powers. The decline of ethnocultural nationalisms in the region, enshrined as state ideologies in the aftermath of independence, has a number of parallels with the current situation of biculturalism, a state institution in New Zealand since the 1980s, which is also now in crisis.