Join us tomorrow, Thursday, Apr. 24 from 6-7:30 p.m. in Kathryn Mohrman Theater for “Where Hawaiʻi Ends,” the 2024-25 Timothy C. Linnemann Memorial Lecture on the Environment with Dr. Hiʻilei Julia Kawehipuaakahaopulani Hobart.

Nestled into the harbor between downtown Honolulu and Daniel K. Inouye Airport lies a low-lying tract of land known as Sand Island. Originally a collection of atolls and mudflats used by Kanaka Maoli for offshore fishing, Sand Island was constructed during the late-19th and early-20th centuries through a process called ‘land reclamation.’ By the mid-20th century, the island became used as a municipal dump. Largely forgotten, several hundred unhoused Kanaka Maoli established an informal fishing village there until the winter of 1979, when the State of Hawaiʻi evicted residents to make way for a new public recreational facility. When residents resisted eviction by asserting their rights as Hawaiians to live on their homelands, the State responded that Sand Island was never Hawaiʻi in the first place. As reclaimed land, it was “born federal.”

This talk analyzes the eviction of the Sand Island community in the context of the techno-social forms of property-making that transpire through the process of land reclamation. Grounded in the Indigenous environmental politics of stewardship and care, this talk emphasizes the economic and ecological debts that are set into motion when fresh lands are brought to the surface.

There will be a book signing before the lecture from 5-5:45 p.m., also in Kathryn Mohrmann Theater.

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