What happens when we center 4S and STS issues in Hawaiʻi? As we gather in Honolulu, we recognize Kānaka Maoli, their allies, and the devastating effects of militarism, colonialism, overtourism, and racial capitalism. We seek to work in solidarity with those who have suffered from various forms of injustice. Experiences of Kānaka Maoli in Hawaiʻi and indigenous people around the world focus our consciousness on struggles over land, water, and bodies and on how science, technology and knowledge—central concerns for 4S—are integral to oppression and marginalization.
In these efforts, we offer sea, sky, and land as metaphors and materialities with which to think about how to live with and revitalize harmed bodies, maligned ecologies, and strained societies. In the midst of settler colonialism, we focus, for example, on the solidarity of Kānaka Maoli with Asian Americans, to address water issues in Hawaiʻi and around the world. Or, to interrogate the problems created when Hawaiʻi is used as a base of military operations to control politics across the Pacific and beyond. We embrace 4S’s long-standing commitments to social and environmental justice across overlapping and diverse intellectual communities to encourage innovative contributions attentive to the problems of dwelling in polluted waters, colonized landscapes, and militarized spaces; of air-born transmission and breathing in asphyxiating economies; or of speaking through undersea cables, underground data centers, and online systems. We welcome STS insights into technoscientific practice and knowledge, the nature of expertise, and whose knowledge claims count and how. We invite you to gather in Honolulu to think and learn about how we care and connect in endangered times.
Kuleana honors those who came before us and explores our responsibility as we alter and displace the nature of our surroundings. As we turn to ourselves for resolve it questions our purpose for future generations. The embrace is not meant to summon an event but to prepare us for what may come.
Aloha.
Kaimana was born and raised in Hawaiʻi and is of Native Hawaiian and Japanese descent, he considers both Honolulu and Waiʻanae his hometowns.
Kaimana is the owner and operator of Holoholo Media, and can be reached at kaimana [@] holoholo.media
As we convene, we acknowledge Hawaiʻi as an indigenous space where the descendants of the original people are kānaka ʻōiwi or Native Hawaiian. The ʻāina [ayne–ah–meaning LAND] on which we gather is located in the ahupuaʻa[ahhoo–pu–ah–ah] of Waikīkī, in the moku [moh–koo] of Kona, on the mokupuni [moh–koopu–ni] of Oʻahu [oh–ah–hoo], in the paeʻāina [pie–ayne–ah] of Hawaiʻi.
We recognize that her majesty Queen Liliʻuokalani [Lee–lee–ooh–oh–kah–lani] yielded the Hawaiian Kingdom and these territories under duress and protest to the United States to avoid the bloodshed of her people, who are recognized in the Kingdom’s law and today as kānaka Maoli. We further recognize that generations of indigenous Hawaiians and their knowledge systems shaped Hawaiʻi in a sustainable way that allow us to enjoy her gifts today. For this, we are truly grateful.
*4S appreciates the Office of University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa Provost Michael Bruno in crafting this acknowledgment.