Pacific as Method: Pursuing Spatiousness, Confronting Confinement

Laurel Mei Singh& Kawena’ulaokalā Kapua

This project introduces Pacific as Method, bringing internationalist insights to studies of the Indigenous Pacific. We demonstrate how the spatial strategies of destruction and confinement endemic to the militarization of the Pacific reach their limit upon confronting expansive practices of connection and solidarity that draw from the power of the sea. We put the idea of “Asia as Method” (introduced by Kuan-Hsing Chen) in critical dialogue with Indigenous Pacific Studies. In particular, Teresia Teaiwa analyzes the Pacific as a site of both grotesque destruction and powerful struggle while ‘Epeli Hau‘ofa expresses how the uncontainable power of the ocean breathes life into self-determination endeavors that defy the confinement endemic to imperialism. We then draw from community organizing in Hawai‘i to center how contemporary anti-imperialist movements build solidarities and connections with occupied spaces and people across oceans. We focus on the Cancel RIMPAC Coalition that was active in 2020 and centered pan-Pacific Indigenous movements against military exercises that unfurl destruction across oceanic lifeways. We also discuss the activism confronting anti-Asian hate in 2021 that emerged from a long history of Native Hawaiian and Asian solidarity confronting militarism. These longstanding efforts in the Pacific build anti-imperialist and anti-racist movements while showing how racism and imperialism in the Pacific go hand in hand. Pacific as Method offers a mode of inquiry that positions Oceania at the center of the world: as both a geopolitically strategic place between Asia and North America, and as a contested space where multiple anti-imperial currents constitute this region.

Kawenaʻulaokalā Kapahua is a Native Hawaiian community organizer from Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi. He is heavily involved and invested in confronting militarism and imperialism that plague both his and his ancestral homelands from Hawaiʻi across the Pacific to Asia.

Laurel Mei-Singh serves as an Assistant Professor of Geography and Asian American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests include environmental justice, militarization, the relationship of race and indigeneity to histories of war, fences and self-determination, abolition, racial capitalism, and the Pacific. Her current project develops a genealogy of military fences and grassroots struggles for land and livelihood in Wai‘anae, a rural and heavily militarized region of the island of O'ahu in Hawai'i. She serves on the board of Hawai‘i Peace and Justice.

t̓iičmisukniš siyaac̓itu (the ocean is our life): ʔuuʔuukʷačiʔ (Self-Determination) and Pathways Forward

Dawn sii-yaa-ilth-supt Smith

hašiʔikmis (bring good news to the world) or Tim Paul (Hesquiaht) is a Nuu-chah-nulth carver, artist, knowledge keeper and my uncle (mom’s younger brother) who is head of our family. How I come to know and understand the ocean is our life and self-determination is by learning first from hašiʔikmis and family cultural teachings[1] (FCT). Having spent a lifetime learning from his caring nature, art and environmental activism found in his art I am able to share this particular mask entitled ‘Killer Whale Holding Up Sea Chief Way Out on the Horizon' (n.d). Here hašiʔikmis shares,

"Every so often a huge face would come up way out at sea on the horizon and beyond the horizon. The Sea Chief would show itself and stay visible for a long while.  This was, to our people, a stern warning that something was going to change, a massive disaster - could be one or one after another. Today the ocean is ill. There is death on the floor of the ocean with entire species on the floor of the ocean. We let go the respect for our relative, the ocean. We overtake and overuse without regard. We are now paying dearly for many lost parts of the ocean. Change."

This upcoming chapter will explore the meaning of t̓iičmisukniš siyaac̓itu (teach-mih-sook-nish see-yaaw-sih-too) through FCT, literature, films and interviews, particularly within the context of ʔuuʔuukʷačiʔ (oo-qua-chii) while considering strategic pathways forward to ensure a healthy, living ocean for the benefit of future generations.

Dawn or sii-yaa-ilth-supt is Nuu-chah-nulth from Ehattesaht. She grew up in the territories of Ehattesaht and W̱SÁNEĆ (both on what is now called Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada) with her late parents, Clyde and Norma Claxton along with great grandparents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and many, many more relatives. Dawn is an Assistant Professor in Indigenous Governance at the University of Victoria where she is a grateful visitor to Lekwungen and W̱SÁNEĆ territories. As a graduate program she works closely with Indigenous communities, students and colleagues to support Indigenous self-determination and governance. She has a BA in Political Science and a Master’s in Indigenous Governance (2007) from the University of Victoria. She holds a Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership and Policy from the University of British Columbia. Dawn was the first UBC student to defend her dissertation away from UBC campus, and in Nuu-chah-nulth territories in July 2018. Her research interests include a feminized and holistic approach to Indigenous governance, particularly in relation to ourselves, more-than-human, environmentalism and sustainability. Dawn’s upcoming publication is a chapter in a forthcoming SeaScapes book. Her chapter and presentation are entitled t̓iičmisukniš siyaac̓itu (the ocean is our life) pronounced teach-mih-sook-nish see-yaaw-sih-too: ʔuuʔuukʷačiʔ (Self-Determination) pronounced oo-qua-chii and Pathways Forward.

[1] hašiʔikmis coined the termed in the 1990’s and it was used in my 2007 Community Governance Project in IGOV at UVic.