Parachute Science in Hawaiʻi: Assessing Local Connectivity of Hawaiʻi Based Marine and Coastal Research

As a site with some of the highest levels of tropical marine endemism on the planet, the Hawaiian Islands have attracted marine and coastal researchers for decades. Much of this research has been conducted by scientists from outside states or countries, typically with high financial and scientific resources, who travel to Hawaiʻi to collect data and produce results that ultimately fail to circulate back to the communities from which the data was collected. This model of reearch is commonly known as “parachute science” or “colonial science.” Studies of parachute science in other places around the globe show that Indigenous communities typically carry the burden of these extractive research models, while simultaneously stewarding a majority of the worldʻs biodiversity with innovative biocultural techniques. To begin to unravel the historical extent of parachute research in Hawaiʻi, we analyzed the percentage of Hawaiʻi-based versus externally-located authors on coastal and marine research publications using data from Hawaiʻi. While Hawaiʻi-based authorship does not solelly determine whether a project is contributing to extractive science, this pilot effort attempts to determine how research data in Hawaiʻi is utilized, and by whom. We find that while the total amount of research done in the Hawaiian islands has increased over the past 30 years, a majority of this increase derives from an increase in the number of externally-based publications. Hawaiʻi-based authorship has remained relatively constant—and low—over this time period. We will present on the implications of this finding for Hawaiʻi researchers, as well as future directions that explore the potential drivers of these research disparities

Mapping and Analyzing Environemtal Justice in the United States

The goal of our project was to strengthen the ties between the domestic environmental justice movement in the United States and rapidly growing international environmental justice movements. Our team worked in coordination with the Environmental Justice, Organizations, Liabilities, and Trade (EJOLT) project, an international collaboration among scholars, activists, and leaders seeking to enhance the sharing of knowledge and experiences to better preserve natural resources and combat environmental injustices. Our project consisted of two primary deliverables: 1) a map of the forty most influential environmental justice conflicts in the United States with detailed information on each conflict and 2) an article on the evolving history of the U.S. environmental justice movement through the lens of activism. The map will be included on the EJOLT Environmental Justice Atlas and the article will available publicly on the EJOLT website. This report outlines the research design, methodology, and analytical decisions involved in producing our project’s two core deliverables. We begin by discussing the primary goals and objectives of our research as they relate to the larger EJOLT mission. A comprehensive literature review provides background on the history of the environmental justice movement within the U.S. and previous efforts to apply social movement and organizational theory to this unique movement. The remainder of the report is divided into two sections. Deliverable I: EJOLT Mapping Initiative describes the process we used to determine the forty most influential conflicts and analyze trends and patterns across those conflicts. Deliverable II: Article on the History of Environmental Justice Activism in the United States describes the process of conducting interviews with environmental justice actors on the evolution of environmental justice activism. We conclude by summarizing future plans for our research and ongoing opportunities for collaboration with the international environmental justice community.Master of ScienceNatural Resources and EnvironmentUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/106565/1/SNRE Report_ Mapping and Analyzing Environmental Justice in the United States_Final.pd

Kūlana Noiʻi: Indigenous Data Stewardship in Hawaiʻi

Each year, scientists conduct hundreds of research projects in Hawaiʻi that focus on the natural resources of the islands’ upland, coastal, and marine ecosystems, systems which are integral to the livelihoods, cultural practices, and religious traditions of Kanaka ʻŌiwi. Yet without guidance, this research too often leaves Kānaka out of research processes, including the decision-making and outcomes vital to determining the scope of a project and its long-term impact. The Kūlana Noiʻi (ethical research standards) were developed to meet the need for establishing reciprocal research partnerships in Hawaiʻi communities, reflecting researcher and community approaches and drawing from extensive partnershps between university scientists, kiaʻi, federal and state resource managers, and local nonprofits. To date, this process-oriented guidance has been used to train over 600 researchers, community member, and resource stewards. In recent updates to the guidance, feedback on the application of the Kūlana to community research scenarios has driven us towards developing a focus on data stewardship, and in particular, Indigenous Data Sovereignty. We will review the ways in which the Kūlana Noiʻi are applicable to developing collaborative relationships regarding the collection, use, and application of data relevant to Hawaiʻi. This processes includes guidance for ensuring that projects working with research data in Hawaiʻi meet Indigenous Data Soveiengity standards and meet their kuleana to ensure that communities have access to and ability to utilize data as well as decision-making power in determining how their information and data are shared

Evolution of the environmental justice movement: activism, formalization and differentiation

To complement a recent flush of research on transnational environmental justice movements, we sought a deeper organizational history of what we understand as the contemporary environmental justice movement in the United States. We thus conducted in-depth interviews with 31 prominent environmental justice activists, scholars, and community leaders across the US. Today’s environmental justice groups have transitioned from specific local efforts to broader national and global mandates, and more sophisticated political, technological, and activist strategies. One of the most significant transformations has been the number of groups adopting formal legal status, and emerging as registered environmental justice organizations (REJOs) within complex partnerships. This article focuses on the emergence of REJOs, and describes the respondents’ views about the implications of this for more local grassroots groups. It reveals a central irony animating work across groups in today’s movement: legal formalization of many environmental justice organizations has made the movement increasingly internally differentiated, dynamic, and networked, even as the passage of actual national laws on environmental justice has proven elusive