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Primary Submission Category: Structural factors
Radical Spatial Practices Against Militourism in Hawaiʻi
Authors: Bryce Takenaka,
Presenting Author: Bryce Takenaka*
Background: The modern health issues of Kānaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiians), especially māhū and LGBTQ+ ʻŌiwi, must be analyzed through the nexus of militarism and tourism (militourism). A participatory photomapping qualitative study, involving neighborhood walking tour interviews, photovoice, and GIS mapping, was conducted to explore how māhū and LGBTQ+ ʻŌiwi understand and experience the apparatus of militourism.
Methods: I attempt to map the intersections of Black, Indigenous, and Geography Studies to assess the contours of militourism as a colonial and capitalistic technology for statecraft, and its possibilities of placemaking for māhū and LGBTQ+ ʻŌiwi. With the partnership, approval, and continued engagement with several Kānaka ʻŌiwi leaders and organizations, including Hawaiʻi Peace & Justice and Papa Ola Lōkahi, interviews were conducted with 10 māhū and LGBTQ+ ʻŌiwi from various generations on Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi.
Results: The historical, structural, institutional, neighborhood, and individual-levels of intimacies and experiences shaped through militourism emerged as prominent themes from the interviews. Key themes included: (1) settler colonial and capitalistic spaces [re]produce on ʻāina, (2) organized abandonment of Kānaka ʻŌiwi communities as a product of the militourism industrial pipeline, (3) contradictions to resisting militourism, (4) ʻŌiwi cultural values and practices are central foundations for joy and surviving within carceral conditions.
Conclusion: These conversations elicit a more complex understanding of the entanglements of militarism and tourism in Hawaiʻi, and how these spaces of leisure simultaneously serve as conduits of settler colonialism, racial capitalistic management, and sexual and gendered violence. This study demonstrates that the interventions of relational studies illuminate how māhū and LGBTQ+ ʻŌiwi are already participating in radical spatial practices for alternative futures.