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

Kristiawan Indriyanto

doi:10.19105/ojbs.v16i2.6981

Kristiawan Indriyanto English Language Education, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Prima Indonesia, Medan, North Sumatra 20118 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7827-2506

https://doi.org/10.19105/ojbs.v16i2.6981

Abstract views: 237 ,

PDF downloads: 185

Keywords: Indigenous ecocriticism, Resilience, Resistance, Postcolonial ecocriticism, Econarratology

Abstract

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.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Adamson, Joni. American Indian Literature, Environmental Justice, and Ecocriticism: The Middle Place. Stated First Printing edition. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2001.

Adamson, Joni, and Salma Monani. “Introduction: Indigenous Insights.” In Ecocriticism and Indigenous Studies: Conversation from Earth to Cosmos, edited by Joni Adamson and Salma Monani, 1–19. New York: Routledge, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754x-3322846.

Adamson, Joni, and Scott Slovic. “Guest Editors’ Introduction: The Shoulders We Stand On: An Introduction to Ethnicity and Ecocriticism.” MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the U.S. 34, no. 2 (2009): 5–24. https://doi.org/10.1353/mel.0.0019.

Alexa, Weik von Mossner. “Feeling Nature: Narrative Environment and Character Emphathy.” In Environment and Narrative: New Directions in Econarratology, edited by Erin James and Eric Morel, 85–93. Colombus: Ohio State University Press, 2021.

Creswell, John W., and Cheryl N. Poth. Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches. London: SAGE Publications, 2016.

Dessouky, Dina El. “Activating Voice, Body, and Place Kanaka Maoli and Ma ‘Ohi Writings for Kaho ‘Olawe and Moruroa.” In Postcolonial Ecologies: Literatures of the Environment, 254–72. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Dessouky, Dina El. “Activating Voice, Body, and Place.” In Postcolonial Ecologies, edited by Elizabeth DeLoughrey and George B. Handley, 254–72. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780195394429.003.0013.

Durnin, Katherine. “Indigenous Literature and Comparability.” CLCWeb - Comparative Literature and Culture 13, no. 2 (2011): 2. https://doi.org/10.7771/1481-4374.1740.

Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press, 1963.

Glotfelty, Cheryll. “Introduction: Literary Studies in an Age of Environmental Crisis.” In The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmark in Literary Ecology, xv–xxxvii. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203426982-7.

Greta, Gaard. “Indigenous Women, Feminism, and the Environmental Humanities.” Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities 1, no. 3 (2014): 86–99. https://doi.org/10.5250/resilience.1.3.007.

Hafen, P. Jane. “Indigenous Peoples and Place.” In A Companion to the Regional Literatures of America, edited by Charles L. Crow, 154–70. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2003. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470999080.ch11.

Harlow, Barbara. Resistance Literature. New York: Methuen Press, 1987.

Heinen, Sandra. “On Postcolonial Narratology and Reading Postcolonial Literature Narratologically.” DIEGESIS 10, no. 1 (2021): 19–30.

Ho’omanawanui, Ku’ualoha. “Hawaiian Literature.” In Ethnic American Literature: An Encyclopedia for Students, edited by Emmanuel S Nelson, 227–32. Santa Barbara: Greenwood, 2015.

Ho’omanawanui, Ku’ualoha. “Kanaka Maoli versus Settler Representations of Aina in Contemporary Literature of Hawai’i.” In Asian Settler Colonialism: From Local Governance to the Habits of Everyday Life in Hawai’i, edited by Candace Fujikane and Jonathan Y Okamura, 116–49. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008. https://doi.org/10.1021/cen-v077n022.p035.

Ho‘omanawanui, Ku‘ualoha. “‘This Land is Your Land, This Land was My Land’. Kanaka Maoli versus Settler Representations of ‘Äina in Contemporary Literature of Hawai‘i.” In Asian Settler Colonialism, edited by Candace Fujikane and Jonathan Y. Okamura, 116–54. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824861513-011.

Huggan, Graham. “Afterword.” In Reframing Postcolonial Studies: Concepts, Methodology, Scholarly Activism, edited by David D. Kim, 261–67. London: Palg, 2021.

Huggan, Graham. “‘Greening’ Postcolonialism: Ecocritical Perspectives.” MFS Modern Fiction Studies 50, no. 3 (2004): 701–33. https://doi.org/10.1353/mfs.2004.0067.

Huggan, Graham, and Helen Tiffin. Postcolonial Ecocriticism: Literature, Animals, Environment. New York: Routledge, 2010. https://www.routledge.com/Postcolonial-Ecocriticism-Literature-Animals-Environment/Huggan-Tiffin/p/book/9781138784192.

Indriyanto, Kristiawan. “Aloha Aina: Native Hawai’ians’ Environmental Perspective in O.A Bushnell’s Ka’a’awa.” Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities 12, no. 1 (2020): 123–33. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v12n1.04.

Indriyanto, Kristiawan. “An Ecolinguistics Analysis of the Wind Gourd of La’amaomao.” International Journal of Humanity Studies (IJHS) 5, no. 1 (2021): 97–108. https://doi.org/10.24071/ijhs.v5i1.3717.

Inglis, Kerri A. Ma’i Lepera: A History of Leprosy. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2013.

James, Erin. The Storyworld Accords: Econarratology and Postcolonial Narratives. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2015. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1d9898m.

Kana’iaupuni, Shawn Malia, and Nolan Malone. “This Land is My Land: The Role of Place in Native Hawaiian Identity.” Hulili: Multidisciplinary Research on Hawaiian Well-Being 3, no. 1 (2006): 287–300.

Kimura, Larry. “The Hawaiian Language.” In The Association of American Geographers on the Culture, Needs, and Concerns of Native Hawaiians, 173–203. Washington: Native Hawaiian Study Commission, 1983.

Kuykendall, Raplh S. The Hawaiian Kingdom, Vol. 1, 1778-1854, Foundation and Transformation. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1938.

Lawson, Angelica Marie. “Resistance and Resilience in the Work of Four Native American Authors.” Dissertation, University of Arizona, 2006.

Maile, David Uahikeaikalei‘ohu. “Going Native: South Park Satire, Settler Colonialism, and Hawaiian Indigeneity.” Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies 17, no. 1 (2017): 60–66. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532708616640562.

McDougall, Brandy Nalani. “From Uē to Kū ‘ē: Loss and Resistance in Haunani-Kay Trask’s Night is a Shark Skin Drum and Matthew Kaopio’s Written in the Sky.” Anglistica 4, no. 2 (2010): 51–62.

Mitchell, Donald D Kilolani. Resource Units in Hawai’ian Culture, Revision, Honolulu: Kamehameha Schools, 1982.

Nakkim, Lynn Kalama. Mahele O Maui. Honolulu: The Seahorse Press, 1984.

Okamura, Jonathan Y. Ethnicity and Inequality in Hawai’i. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2008. https://doi.org/10.1177/009430610903800126.

Rapaport, Moshe. The Pacific Islands: Environment and Society. Honolulu: Bess Press, 1999.

Rooney, Brigid. Literary Activists: Writer-Intellectuals and Australian Public Life. Queensland: Queensland University Press, 2009.

Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage Books, 1994.

Said, Edward W. Orientalism. London: Penguin Books, 1997. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131910802195745.

Spencer, Robert. “Ecocriticism in the Colonial Present: The Politics of Dwelling in Raja Shehadeh’s Palestinian Walks: Notes on a Vanishing Landscape.” Postcolonial Studies 13, no. 1 (2010): 33–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/13688790903490843.

Stibbe, Arran. “Ecolinguistics and Globalization.” In The Handbook of Language and Globalization, edited by Nicolas Couplan, 406–25. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444324068.ch18.

Toyosato, Mayumi. “Land and Hawaiian Identity: Literary Activism in Kiana Davenport’s Shark Dialogues.” In New Essays in Ecofeminists Literary Criticism, edited by Glynis Can. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2000.

Trask, Haunani-Kay. “Lovely Hula Lands: Corporate Tourism and the Prostitution of Hawaiian Culture.” Border/Lines, no. 23 (1991): 22–34.

Trask, Haunani-Kay. “Settlers of Color and ‘Immigrant’ Hegemony: ‘Locals’ in Hawai’i.” Amerasia Journal 26, no. 2 (2000): 1–26. https://doi.org/10.17953/amer.26.2.b31642r221215k7k.