“The decision you make today will affect many generations to come”: Environmental assessment law and Indigenous resistance to urbanization

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 807-830 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Darrah-Okike
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Review Process ◽  
Native Hawaiian ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Cultural Meanings ◽  
Environmental Assessments ◽  
Indigenous Resistance ◽  
To Come ◽  
Land Struggle

In the early 2000s, the rural and predominantly Native Hawaiian Moloka‘i community faced another episode in a decades-long struggle against the commodification of sacred lands in the context of settler colonialism. In this paper I analyze a decisive moment in the land struggle: a public hearing over a legally mandated environmental impact assessment. Environmental assessments promise to improve environmental outcomes via public participation, but have often fallen short as a means to assert the values and interests of Indigenous communities. This paper adds insight into why this happens and shows how one community overcame the political limitations of the environmental assessments process. Through an analysis of public records and interview data, I show how corporate landowners engaged in extensive community consultation to pursue their commercial interests, in anticipation of the environmental assessments and in hopes of securing land-use approvals. However, in response, community members articulated Indigenous values and agency within (and beyond) a legal setting and environmental review process partially at odds with such values. I argue that defenders of a culturally sacred place, Lā‘au Point, both deployed and resisted Hawai‘i’s land-use and environmental laws. They leveraged the formal legal criteria of the environmental review process, yet they affirmed cultural meanings and relationships of moral responsibility to land by deploying multiple literacies—legal literacies as well as land and culture-based literacies—to protect a cherished place. Overall, this case study reveals the diversity, complexity, and resilience of Native Hawaiian resistance to urbanization and settler colonialism.

scholarly journals Rewilding, "the Hoop," and Settler Apocalypse

The Trumpeter ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 126-146
Author(s):  
Bruno Seraphin
Keyword(s):  
Great Basin ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Ecological Knowledge ◽  
Columbia Plateau ◽  
Ongoing Work ◽  
Environmental Thought ◽  
To Come

This paper presents an ethnographic account of a grassroots network of mostly white-identified nomads who travel in the northwest United States’ Great Basin and Columbia Plateau regions. Living mostly on National Forest land, this movement of “rewilders” appropriates local Indigenous peoples’ traditional ecological knowledge in order to gather and replant wild foods in a seasonal round that they refer to as the “Sacred Hoop.” I discuss the Hoop network in order to explore the environmental ethics of a group that is at once strikingly unique and also an embodiment of the problems of settler colonialism within the broader environmentalist movement. I begin by introducing the group's ecologies and ethics, and subsequently move into an examination of the multiple and sometimes-contradictory lines of apocalyptic narrative logic at work in Hoopster discourse. I assert that the Hoopsters’ conflicting accounts of the Anthropocene, and the temporality of its disasters, are a manifestation of their ongoing work grappling with their own racial positionality. Despite the Hoopsters’ uncompromising critiques of colonialism, capitalism, and environmental exploitation, they struggle to come to terms with their role in ongoing colonialism and the marginalization of Indigenous peoples. In this way, the Hoopsters echo the troubled narratives at work in broader North American environmental thought, which consistently reveres the idea of Indigenous cultures while failing to enter into solidarity relationships with contemporary Indigenous communities and their efforts toward decolonization.

Defiant Indigeneity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Nohelani Teves
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Native Hawaiian ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Kanaka Maoli ◽  
The Face ◽  
Hawaiian Literature ◽  
The Way

"Aloha" is at once the most significant and the most misunderstood word in the Indigenous Hawaiian lexicon. For Kānaka Maoli people, the concept of "aloha" is a representation and articulation of their identity, despite its misappropriation and commandeering by non-Native audiences in the form of things like the "hula girl" of popular culture. Considering the way aloha is embodied, performed, and interpreted in Native Hawaiian literature, music, plays, dance, drag performance, and even ghost tours from the twentieth century to the present, Stephanie Nohelani Teves shows that misunderstanding of the concept by non-Native audiences has not prevented the Kānaka Maoli from using it to create and empower community and articulate its distinct Indigenous meaning. While Native Hawaiian artists, activists, scholars, and other performers have labored to educate diverse publics about the complexity of Indigenous Hawaiian identity, ongoing acts of violence against Indigenous communities have undermined these efforts. In this multidisciplinary work, Teves argues that Indigenous peoples must continue to embrace the performance of their identities in the face of this violence in order to challenge settler-colonialism and its efforts to contain and commodify Hawaiian Indigeneity.

Education for Elimination in Nineteenth-Century Hawai‘i: Settler Colonialism and the Native Hawaiian Chiefs' Children's Boarding School

2014 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Kaomea
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Native Hawaiian ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Boarding School ◽  
Untimely Death ◽  
Long Line ◽  
To Come ◽  
Crown Prince

On August 27, 1862, the much-loved crown prince and heir apparent to the throne of the Kingdom of Hawai'i died tragically and inexplicably at the tender age of four. Prince Albert Edward Kauikeaouli Kaleiopapa, the beloved child of a long line of chiefs, was the only son of Alexander Liholiho (Kamehameha IV) and Emma Na'ea (Queen Emma). He was believed to be the last child to be born to a reigning Hawaiian monarch and the last hope of the Kamehameha Dynasty. Adored by the Hawaiian public, his birth was celebrated for days throughout the islands. Likewise, his untimely death was mourned for years to come as it left his parents heartbroken and the Hawaiian nation without a constitutionally recognized heir. One of the Hawaiian newspapers is quoted as saying, “The death of no other person could have been so severe a blow to the King and his people.” The following year, the King himself died of grief and despair.

Indigenous Feminist Notes on Embodying Alliance against Settler Colonialism

Meridians ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 335-357
Author(s):  
Maile Arvin
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Native Hawaiian ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Feminist Perspective ◽  
Native Hawaiians ◽  
Kanaka Maoli ◽  
Environmental Destruction ◽  
Asian Settler Colonialism ◽  
Foundational Work

Abstract How can we enact meaningful forms of solidarity across Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities? This essay, which focuses specifically on the context of settler colonialism in Hawaiʻi, examines existing or potential alliances between Indigenous feminisms and transnational feminisms. Written from a Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) feminist perspective, the essay looks to the foundational work of Kanaka Maoli scholar-activist Haunani-Kay Trask as a too often overlooked theorist of settler colonialism writ broadly. The essay also looks more specifically at Trask’s theorizing of Asian settler colonialism in the Hawaiʻi context, in relation to contemporary examples of conflicts between Native Hawaiians and the state, as well as Native Hawaiian activists and white feminists. Overall, the essay questions how reframing Asian settler colonialism in more concerted conversation with Indigenous feminisms and transnational feminisms might provide space to move our practices of solidarity against settler colonialism, imperialism, nativism, militarization, and environmental destruction into a generative space for Kānaka Maoli and non-Indigenous peoples alike.

Reclaiming Rainmaking from Damming Epistemologies

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 353-372
Author(s):  
Shelbi Nahwilet Meissner ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Epistemic Injustice ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Indigenous Resistance ◽  
Indigenous Epistemologies ◽  
Colonial Violence ◽  
Embodied Practice ◽  
The Way

In California Indian epistemologies, water, land, language, and knowledge are intimately connected through ancient cycles of research, ceremony, and kinship. Since creation, ‘atáaxum champúulam//Luiseño medicine people sang for rain, holding ceremonies that kept the riv­ers full, the plants strong, and our people from thirst. Rainmaking in this essay serves as an example of an Indigenous lifeway and practice that was subjected to colonial violence; rainmaking also serves as a more figurative and emblematic example of a central feature of Indigenous epistemologies in which language, land, governance/clan systems, and ceremony are linked together as an embodied practice. Embodied practices and the cluster of concepts connected to them are contrasted throughout this essay with parcels, or aspects of Indigenous lifeways that are rendered as individualized pieces or as mere resources. Indigenous lifeways are rendered as parcels or mere resources through a process of structural epistemic injustice (contributory injustice) that can be referted to as epistemic damming. Through contributory injustice, or epistemic damming, settler colonial legal and academic structures have transformed Indigenous practices by rendering them into parcels, or mere resources, and doling them out piecemeal back to Indigenous communities as a lackluster gesture at justice. This essay (1) provides sorely underdiscussed historical context of the impacts of settler colonialism on Indigenous lifeways and practices, spotlighting the specific manifestations of settler colonial violence in California, (2) shows how Indigenous practices are epistemically dammed, or subjected to structural contributory injustice, highlighting contemporary examples thereof, and (3) briefly gestures at a now-visible roadmap of avenues of Indigenous resistance with hazards such as contributory injustice flagged along the way.

scholarly journals Key Challenges for Land Use Planning and Its Environmental Assessments in the Abuja City-Region, Nigeria

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 443
Author(s):  
Evidence Chinedu Enoguanbhor ◽  
Florian Gollnow ◽  
Blake Byron Walker ◽  
Jonas Ostergaard Nielsen ◽  
Tobia Lakes
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Environmental Assessment ◽  
Land Use Planning ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Environmental Assessments ◽  
City Regions ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Land Cover Maps

Land use planning as strategic instruments to guide urban dynamics faces particular challenges in the Global South, including Sub-Saharan Africa, where urgent interventions are required to improve urban and environmental sustainability. This study investigated and identified key challenges of land use planning and its environmental assessments to improve the urban and environmental sustainability of city-regions. In doing so, we combined expert interviews and questionnaires with spatial analyses of urban and regional land use plans, as well as current and future urban land cover maps derived from Geographic Information Systems and remote sensing. By overlaying and contrasting land use plans and land cover maps, we investigated spatial inconsistencies between urban and regional plans and the associated urban land dynamics and used expert surveys to identify the causes of such inconsistencies. We furthermore identified and interrogated key challenges facing land use planning, including its environmental assessment procedures, and explored means for overcoming these barriers to rapid, yet environmentally sound urban growth. The results illuminated multiple inconsistencies (e.g., spatial conflicts) between urban and regional plans, most prominently stemming from conflicts in administrative boundaries and a lack of interdepartmental coordination. Key findings identified a lack of Strategic Environmental Assessment and inadequate implementation of land use plans caused by e.g., insufficient funding, lack of political will, political interference, corruption as challenges facing land use planning strategies for urban and environmental sustainability. The baseline information provided in this study is crucial to improve strategic planning and urban/environmental sustainability of city-regions in Sub-Saharan Africa and across the Global South, where land use planning faces similar challenges to address haphazard urban expansion patterns.

Vulnerabilities and Threats to Natural Forest Regrowth: Land Tenure Reform, Land Markets, Pasturelands, Plantations, and Urbanization in Indigenous Communities in Mexico

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 1340
Author(s):  
Elena Lazos-Chavero ◽  
Paula Meli ◽  
Consuelo Bonfil
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Natural Regeneration ◽  
Forest Conservation ◽  
Biosphere Reserve ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Landscape Restoration ◽  
Peasant Communities ◽  
Tenure Reform ◽  
Biological Corridor

Despite the economic and social costs of national and international efforts to restore millions of hectares of deforested and degraded landscapes, results have not met expectations due to land tenure conflicts, land-use transformation, and top-down decision-making policies. Privatization of land, expansion of cattle raising, plantations, and urbanization have created an increasingly competitive land market, dispossessing local communities and threatening forest conservation and regeneration. In contrast to significant investments in reforestation, natural regrowth, which could contribute to landscape regeneration, has not been sufficiently promoted by national governments. This study analyzes socio-ecological and economic vulnerabilities of indigenous and other peasant communities in the Mexican states of Veracruz, Chiapas, and Morelos related to the inclusion of natural regeneration in their forest cycles. While these communities are located within protected areas (Los Tuxtlas Biosphere Reserve, Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve, El Tepozteco National Park, and Chichinautzin Biological Corridor), various threats and vulnerabilities impede natural regeneration. Although landscape restoration involves complex political, economic, and social relationships and decisions by a variety of stakeholders, we focus on communities’ vulnerable land rights and the impacts of privatization on changes in land use and forest conservation. We conclude that the social, economic, political, and environmental vulnerabilities of the study communities threaten natural regeneration, and we explore necessary changes for incorporating this process in landscape restoration.

Papakū Makawalu and grounded theory: a combined and collective analysis for Hawai’i land stewardship—Honuaiākea

2021 ◽  
pp. 117718012110583
Author(s):  
Huihui Kanahele-Mossman ◽  
Marina Karides
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Grounded Theory ◽  
Native Hawaiian ◽  
Land Ownership ◽  
Sacred Site ◽  
Kanaka Maoli ◽  
Land Stewardship

Kia’i (protectors) opposed to the building of a Thirty Meter Telescope on the summit of Mauna Kea, a profoundly sacred site and ecologically vital one, impeded its construction to date. The sanctity of Mauna Kea and its implications for Hawai’i’s sovereignty and land ownership are central to the struggle, yet what are the Indigenous ecological laws of Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) that ground opposition to the Thirty Meter Telescope? To construct a land stewardship policy, the Edith Kanaka’ole Foundation leadership bridged Papakū Makawalu, a Kanaka Maoli methodology, with grounded theory. Edith Kanaka’ole Foundation leaders organized a series of events where experts collectively and individually merged the two methods to analyse chants. Our article presents a discussion of (a) the struggles over land use on Mauna Kea, (b) the processes for merging methodological traditions, and (c) reflections on Kīho’iho Kānāwai (restoring Kānāwai for Island Stewardship), the final document of Honuaiākea (Earth in Expanse).

scholarly journals Reforming the International Criminal Court (ICC): Progress, Perils and Pitfalls Post the ICC Review Process

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-42
Author(s):  
Jeremy Julian Sarkin
Keyword(s):  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Review Process ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Core Theme ◽  
Role Players ◽  
To Come ◽  
State Cooperation

Summary The International Criminal Court is a very controversial institution. It is extensively criticised by both its critics and its supporters. This article examines what steps have been taken to reform the Court. It considers issues such as the need for better communications and messaging by the Court. The paper takes up how and why the Court needs to engage better and in more far-reaching ways with a host of role players that affect the terrain in which the Court operates. It is argued that more reform is needed in how the Court is lead, how it operates, and who the judges and staff are. It is argued that greater diversity is needed at the Court. Also taken up are how the reach of the Court can be increased beyond only prosecutions, how the Court can assist states to prosecute more cases themselves, and how the Court can become more victim centred. A core theme is how state cooperation can be enhanced. A range of suggestions are made so as to enhance the role of the Court in the years to come.

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