Uahikea Maile

AAPI: The Promise and Problems of Acronyming Asian-American and Pacific Islanders Where does the acronym of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) come from? How did May become AAPI Heritage Month? What is the legacy of it today in the US, especially in the context of federal, state, and university crackdowns on DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion)? This talk answers these questions to consider both the promise and problems of acronyming Asian American and Pacific Islanders at the intersection of race, nationality, class, diaspora, and Indigeneity.

Consuming Hawaiʻi: Popular Culture, Food, and the Political Economy of Representation From poi to poke, Hawaiian food is a globalized commodity for production and consumption. Whether vacationing in Waikīkī or residing in Chicago, the foods of Hawai’i have spread throughout the world, for better or worse. Beginning with the Indigenous agriculture and foodways of Kanaka Maoli then hybridized in the local culture developed on sugar plantations, now unlike ever before is “Hawaiian food” known, made, and enjoyed. Ideas about foods and thus representations of Hawai’i make good business. Whether authentic or bastardized, Hawaiian culture can turn a big profit. This talk explores popular culture, food, and the political economy of representation in consuming Hawai’i.

Hawaiʻi: Militarism, Tourism, and the Modern Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement This talk charts the historical, legal, political, economic, and social transformations of Hawai’i from an independent country governed by an Indigenous constitutional monarchy—recognized in treaty as a sovereign nation in 1843—to a US settler colony dependent upon military occupation and global corporatized tourism. Doing so, the talk discusses the birth of the modern Hawaiian sovereignty movement in the 1970s, and its steadfast endurance in the 21st century which powerfully contests ongoing harms resulting from militarism and tourism across the islands.

Savage Taxation: American Political Thought, Hawaiian Capitalism, and Kanaka Maoli Anti-Capitalism in the 19th Century How did the Hawaiian Kingdom’s government adopt capitalism as an official political economy in the 19th century? This talk contends that American political thought shaped the gradual institutionalization of capitalism in Hawai‘i. Translating Francis Wayland’s Elements of Political Economy (1837), William Richards, an American missionary turned advisor, wrote and published No Ke Kalaiaina (1839) to teach founders of the Hawaiian Kingdom at their request about government, politics, and capital. The talk shows how American theories of so-called savage taxation drove a modern transformation in Hawaiian governance, political economy, and socio-ecological relations. Yet, Native Hawaiians creatively diagnosed and challenged how capital greased the wheels of colonialism throughout the 19th century. The talk concludes by arguing that the Indigenous political idea and practice of aloha ‘āina was, and should be considered, both anti-capitalist and anti-colonial.

Indigenous Property: Possession, Dispossession, and Counterdispossession in Hawaiʻi at the Turn of the 20th Century This talk examines the Hawaiian Kingdom’s land reforms in the 19th century, constituting the state modernization project to gradually transition to capitalism, and how it engineered a hybrid system of joint ownership and private property across the islands, which paradoxically created sovereign conditions of legal, political, economic, and social possibility for Kanaka Maoli possession, dispossession, and counterdispossession in Hawaiʻi. Discussing a landmark dispute over the Holualoa-Kaikainahaole-Maile family property in Honolulu at the turn of the 20th century, the talk suggests that Hawaiian property law and rights for individual ownership didn’t prevent colonial dispossession. At the same time, Kanaka Maoli engaged in steadfast acts of legal and embodied counterdispossession that have endured and been strengthened in contemporary Indigenous political struggles with settler colonial capitalism.

‘A’ole Is Our Refusal: US Federal Recognition, Indian Law and Policy, and Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism in Hawai’i Although US federal recognition according to Indian law and policy is largely viewed as positive and beneficial for Indigenous self-determination, it is complicated by the case of Hawai’i. While some Native Hawaiians support US federal recognition of a reorganized governing entity, most across the islands oppose that effort. Unfortunately, this difference of opinion and diversity of perspective has led many to believe that Native Hawaiians are severely divided and thus incapable of self-government. This talk investigates the case of US-Hawaiian recognition in historical and contemporary contexts, suggesting that Native Hawaiian opposition offers potent and sometimes contradictory criticisms of colonialism.

Mauna Kea, Astronomy, and the Colonial Rush to Space Conquest of new frontiers in the universe requires the colonization of old ones. This talk interrogates technoscience desires to explore outer space, and how time and territory for discovering extraterrestrials and habitable planets are organized through settler colonialism on our own. Examining modern astronomy at Mauna Kea, it argues the technoscientific promise of the Thirty Meter Telescope hinges on a temporality of lateness—late to show up and late in time—that contributes to the dehumanization, elimination, and dispossession of Kanaka Maoli, the Indigenous people of Hawai‘i. I demonstrate further that kia‘i—mountain protectors— unsettle technoscientific conquest by cruising Mauna Kea as an alternative tempo that disrupts the pace of building the observatory.