Publication date:
03 June 1999Length of book:
240 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersISBN-13: 9780847691401
This insightful study examines the strategies used by outsiders to usurp Hawaiian lands and undermine indigenous Hawaiian culture. Drawing upon historical and contemporary examples, Houston Wood investigates the journals of Captain Cook, Hollywood films, commercialized hula, Waikiki development schemes, and the appropriation of Pele and Kilauea by haoles to explore how these diverse productions all displace Native culture. Yet, the author emphasizes the voices that have never been completely silenced and can be heard asserting themselves today through songs, chants, literature, the internet, and the Native nationalist sovereignty movement. This impassioned argument about the linkages between textual and physical displacements of Native Hawaiians will engage all readers interested in Pacific literature and postcolonial studies.
Wood's book offers very strong critical analyses of dominant cultural productions and discursive struggles, with a central focus on the contested terrain of representation. Displacing Natives is an excellent choice for courses that focus on on US colonialism, Hawaiian Studies, literary and visual representations of indigenous peoples, and ethnic studies. In this time of 'ena makani (stormy winds) it is important to see a scholarly work that explains the enduring process by which Hawaiian indigeneity is continuously effaced in and through the dominant popular culture.