Studies on nickel mining in New Caledonia have mostly focused on how mining activities have been translated into a political issue, Kanak mobilizations to regain control over mining sites and increasing participation in large-scale mining projects. Less attention has been paid to the impacts of these processes on employment, labor organization and the relations between wage labor and livelihoods. The proposed project aims to fill this gap by identifying the drivers of kanak populations’ involvement in the mining sector, the factors that influence labor division and reconfigurations generated by the development of wage labor on mining sites. Mainly through an ethnographic approach, the research will be conducted on both large-scale mining projects and small scale ones with a comparative dimension with two mines in Canada.