“The South Pacific and Celtic Parallels: Robert Louis Stevenson, Colonial Contact Zones, and The Beach of Falesá.” Babel-Civilisations et Sociétés, vol. 22, 2026. 9851 mots..

This paper re-examines Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Beach of Falesá through the lens of intercultural and transcultural studies, arguing that the novella offers a sophisticated reflection on cultural encounter, alterity, and the limits of colonial discourse. While critics have traditionally linked Stevenson’s Pacific writings to Scottish identity or read them as “proto-Celticist” critiques of empire, this study shifts the focus toward Stevenson’s representation of cultural negotiation in the South Pacific and its contemporary relevance.The analysis demonstrates how Stevenson dismantles essentialist assumptions about the Other, exposing the instability of concepts such as Britishness, whiteness, and colonial authority. Through the transformation of John Wiltshire—from a prejudiced trader confident in his racial superiority to a man reshaped through contact with Kanak(a) culture—the novella charts a movement from cross-cultural interaction, marked by hierarchy and misunderstanding, toward transcultural exchange grounded in reciprocity, hybridity, and mutual transformation.The article further examines Stevenson’s critique of the pitfalls that structure colonial encounters: the presumption of knowing the Other, the illusion of seamless translatability, and the tendency to domesticate the exotic through familiar cultural frameworks. Drawing on theorists such as Mary Louise Pratt, Fernando Ortiz, Wolfgang Welsch, Emily Apter, and Lawrence Venuti, the paper shows how The Beach of Falesá exposes the fragility of colonial binaries and recasts the Pacific not as a space to be mapped and mastered, but as a site of uncertainty, negotiation, and ethical engagement.Ultimately, the study argues that Stevenson anticipates modern transcultural thought, offering a model for how uprooted Europeans—including Celts like himself—might learn to live with, rather than over, Indigenous peoples. This intercultural vision, shaped by Stevenson’s Pacific experience and his sensitivity to cultural oppression, remains particularly resonant today in the context of ongoing debates in New Caledonia.