Resilience and Resistance: Indigenous Agency of Hawai’ian Indigene in Lynn Kalama Nakkim’s Mahele o Maui

In recent years, the emergence of indigenous literature contextualizes the historicity of colonialism and the ensuing resistance. This present study articulates how the Native Hawai’ians articulate their resistance against American domination through the resilience of their cultural heritage and advocates for political changes, as is reflected in Lynn Kalama Nakkim’s Mahele o Maui. The study applied an econarratological perspective which foregrounds the reader's active role in reimagining a different socio-cultural perspective of the natural environment from Mahele’s perspective and engaging with other (non-Western) environmental imagination. The theory of resilience and resistance, as stated by Adamson and Molina, underlines how indigenous Hawai’ian tradition manages to persevere and transform through the Western model of narration, a novel. The study explores how Nakkim’s fiction articulates the indigenous epistemology of Aloha Aina to actively resist American domination with the eventual goal of achieving sovereignty and independence. The finding concludes how Native Hawai’ians’ literature has a similar concern with other indigenous struggles in the world, advocative and politically oriented in outlook, echoing their struggle for the right of self-determination and eventual sovereignty

Manifestation of Colonial Discourse and Anthropocentric Outlook in James Michener’s Hawai’i

One of the foremost developments in literary criticism is the awareness that colonialism results in ecological devastation of the colonies through exploitation of nature. This phenomenon is legitimized through Western anthropocentric paradigm that considers nature merely as commodity to be utilized for humankind's benefit. This paper analyses the underlying Western colonial discourse that rationalizes ecological exploitation in Hawai'i based on the reading on James Michener's Hawai'i. With postcolonial ecocriticism as the framework, the present study focuses on the conflicts that arise between the islanders and the white settlers concerning human and non-human relationships. Western discourse promotes the superiority of their culture based on the privileged position in a binary opposition which is contrasted with the backwardness of the natives. The labelling of certain Hawai'ian traditions as pagan and heathen practice plays a pivotal role in articulating the Western anthropocentric paradigm in which the missionaries function as agent of colonialism. The culmination of Western colonial discourse manifests in the transformation of Hawai'ian landscape for capitalistic enterprise of agriculture and sugar plantation. This event also signifies the commodification in the landscape and centre-periphery relationship which underlines the economical exploitation of the colony

Positioning the Pacific as a Disabling Environment: Reading of Kiana Davenport’s The House of Many Gods

This study analyzes Kiana Davenport’s the House of Many Gods, a novel that contextualizes the issue of the nuclearized Pacific and the islanders’ exposure toward the toxic substance as an intersection between environmental/eco-criticism and disability studies. Deriving from Carrigan’s concept of disabling environment, this article foregrounds the continuation of western colonialism and nuclear militarism in the Pacific which is positioned as the periphery, far from the Western metropolitan center. The presence of nuclearized military installations in the Pacific articulates the unequal relationship between the metropolitan center and distant overseas colony in the Pacific as a site for experimentation. The novel dramatizes how the islanders are exposed toward dangerous and toxic substances which ravaged their bodies, denied their agency as healthy citizens, alienated them from their landscape (aina) and kept them in a state of continuous disablement. Employing Carrigan’s concept of disabling environment, this paper argues that the exploitation of indigenous people is legitimized under the guise of advancing Western scientific advancement. This study concludes that the Pacific islanders as it is represented in the House of Many Gods are instrumentalized as the ‘non-human’ in which their existence is necessary for the scientific progress of the Western powers

HAWAIIS ECOLOGICAL IMPERIALISM: POSTCOLONIAL ECOCRITICISM READING ON KIANA DAVENPORTS SHARK DIALOGUES

Recent studies of postcolonialism have explored the interconnection between postcolonial and environmental/eco-criticism. Studies from Huggan (2004), Nixon (2005), Cilano and DeLoughrey (2007) counter the underlying assumption that these criticisms stand in opposition toward each other by pointing out the overlapping areas of interest between postcolonial and ecocriticism and the complementary aspect of these two criticisms (Buell, 2011). Postcolonial ecocriticism, as theorized by Huggan and Tiffin (2010) and DeLoughrey and Handley (2011) asserts the intertwined correlation between environmental degradation and the marginalization of the minority/indigenous ethic groups which inhabit a particular place. The underlying capitalist and mechanistic ideologies in which nature is perceived only of their intrinsic values and usefulness toward (Western) humans illustrates total disregard to the original owner of the colonized land, the indigenous people. This perspective is underlined by Serpil Oppermanns (2007) concept of ecological imperialism to underline the anthropocentric perspective that legitimate Western domination toward the colonies natural resources. Although discussion of postcolonial ecocriticism has encompassed diverse regions such as Caribbean, Africa and Asia, scant attention has been given toward Pacific archipelago especially Hawaii. Through reading on Kiana Davenports Shark Dialogues (1994), this paper explores how American colonialism results in ecological imperialism in this island chain. It is hoped that this analysis can contribute toward enriching the discussion on postcolonial ecocriticism.DOI: 10.24071/ijhs.2019.02020

Interrogating Canonical World English Literature: Journey to the West and Romance of the Three Kingdoms

This paper aims to chart how literary work of non-Western origin is incorporated into World English Literature by giving example of two Chinese Classic Novels. Among the Chinese Classic Novels, Journey to the West is the novel that achieves wider popularity among Western scholars and canonized while other Chinese Classic Novels are not as popular especially among Western academia. The different reception is related also with how both novels are circulated, translated, and adapted from Chinese into English. The emphasis of this paper is to compare the issue of circulation, translation, and adaptation between Journey to the Westand Romance of the Three Kingdoms as another Chinese Classic Novel. By comparing different issues of how both novels enter the Western World, this paper hopes to have an insight regarding how these two novels have different popularity among academic scholars.Keywords: charting World English Literature, Chinese classics novel

DECONSTRUCTING PARADISE: WE NARRATION AS COLLECTIVE INDIGENOUS VOICE IN “THIS IS PARADISE”

This paper contextualizes how a short story “This is Paradise” by Kristiana Kahakauwila deconstructs the idealized trope of Hawai’i as paradise by presenting a localized narration from the perspective of the indigene working within the tourist industry. The use of first-person plural narration as the focalizer echoes the collective voice of the Hawai’ian indigene in their marginalized status within the tourist industry. An econarratological perspective as stated by Erin James provides reader with textual cues necessary to construct a mental model of Hawai’i from the insiders’ perspective. Kahakauwila’s use of insiders’ perspective enables reader to have an understanding of indigenous marginalization in Hawai’i, informed by a local experience of place. This perspective challenges the common depiction of Hawai’i as seen from the outsider/tourist point of view. The present study concludes how “This is Paradise” underlines a localized portrayal of the Hawai’i as the counter narrative toward the established trope of Hawai’i as paradise through its use of first-person plural and spatialization of Waikiki

AN ECOLINGUISTICS ANALYSIS OF THE WIND GOURD OF LA’AMAOMAO

This study foregrounds the Native Hawai’ians’ interconnection between culture and nature through ecolinguistic analysis of the Wind Gourd of La’amaomao. The language use in this Hawai’ian folktale emphasizes the reverence Hawai’ian people have toward their environment based on familial kinship. The analysis mainly focuses on two aspects of language use, based on Stibbe’s theory of ecolinguistic, ideology/discourse and evaluation/appraisal. The study also posits the ecosophy/ecological philosophy derived from the text in line with the current state of environmental crisis.  The study argues that the discourse employed in the text is positive, based on recognizing the need of sustainability. The positive discourse is also reflected through close emotional connection between people and place which is reflected in wind naming pattern and Hawai’ian place names. Secondly, nature is also appraised positively as seen in the celebratory tone and vocabulary used. The study concludes that alternative way of perceiving the environment, as seen from the reading of the Wind Gourd of La’amaomao should be considered as a critique toward Western anthropocentrism.

Spatializing Narrative: Postcolonial Spaces of Oswald Andrew Bushnell’s Ka’a’awa

This study explores the representation of space in O.A Bushnell’s Ka’awa in which the seemingly contradictory spatial scene of the urban, the rural, the picturesque and the macabre delineates the complexity of postcolonial spaces. Ka’a’awa foregrounds the journey of Hiram Nihoa through his travel all around O’ahu in the 1850’s. Nihoa’s first-person account provides a vivid avenue for the readers through textual cues delineating spaces as they mentally mapped the slowly unfolding and unfamiliar spaces as his narration progresses. This study is the intersection between environmental/eco-criticism and geo-criticism which focuses on the complexities between spatial referents and their real-world referents as is stated by Tally Jr and Prieto, especially the postcolonial contexts of Hawai’i-West interaction during the second half of the 19th century. The finding posits how the readers familiarize themselves with the picturesque landscape of O’ahu through Nihoa’s evocative narration and how the spatial scene later resurfaces as space connotes death and diseases due to epidemic which defamiliarizes readers from prior spatiality. The spatial scene narrating scene of disease, despair and death highlights the discursive and material condition of Hawai’i as a postcolonial space. Space in Ka’a’awa alludes both toward the referential condition of 1850’s Hawai’i and symbolically represents the decline of the Hawai’ian natives

Decolonizing Discourses of Tropicality: Militourism and Aloha ‘Āina in Kiana Davenport’s Novels

This paper contextualizes Hawai‘i as a tropical landscape submerged under the discourse of exoticism which conceals the continuing American militarism, nuclearization, and tourist-oriented development in this archipelago. Militourism, as defined by Teresia Teaiwa, argues that the perpetuation of tourism based upon the imagination of tropical paradise conceals the continuation of colonial/neocolonial exploitation of the Hawaiian Islands. Under the discourse of tropicality, nature is instrumentalized, denying the agency and subjectivity of both the environment and Hawaiian indigene positioned as the Other. Kiana Davenport’s literary imagination of Hawai‘i contextualizes this locale as a postcolonial space, a site of conflict and contestation concerning discourses of nature. Her fictions decolonize colonial conceptions of nature by construing the Kānaka epistemology of aloha ‘āina which refigures nature as an active subject. It further posits the intertwined aspects of nature, place, and culture in Indigenous epistemology. Aloha ‘āina functions as a locus of Indigenous resistance interwoven with their political resistance, ongoing struggles for reclaiming ownership of land, and eventual sovereignty