Uahikea Maile nurtures radical responsibility & a refusal of settler colonial capitalism

Uahikea Maile is a Kānaka Maoli scholar and activist from Maunawili, Oʻahu. He works as an Assistant Professor of Indigenous Politics in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto. Maile’s research looks at the legal constraints and decolonial activism that marks the history of Hawaiian sovereignty. His upcoming book focuses on settler colonial capitalism and Indigenous sovereignty in Hawaiʻi, and investigates the formation of settler colonial capitalism alongside the gifts of sovereignty that seek to overturn that form of domination by assuming radical responsibility for balancing relationships with ‘āina, or the land that feeds. In our conversation he talks about the meanings of Mauna Kea, which is not only the tallest mountain in the world, but also, more importantly, a place of worship and deep relationality for Kānaka Maoli that has been under threat for generations as a result of numerous telescope projects and the pursuit of profit through tourism. The struggle for Mauna Kea is a focal point of this interview for a number of reasons. Maile says that the state has shown it privileges the veneration of astronomy over the legally protected sacredness of Indigenous Hawaiians’ relationship to the place, and this is unequivocally because government funding, tourism and settler colonial capital determine what counts as valuable. Maile asks bluntly: why can’t we accept that leveling peaks of mountains is inherently a violent act of “desecration”? This is difficult, when one aspect of the struggle is the fact that the pop cultural trope of Hawai’i as a popular refuge continues to draw people in, even during a pandemic. On this point, he describes how lockdown, for a brief moment, allowed Indigenous Hawai’ians to see what places like Honolulu Harbor, Waikiki and others would look like as they began to “heal” from the “degradation” caused by this influx of tourists. Another theme here is the idea that we should take pop cultural representations seriously, but perhaps not too seriously. We talk about South Park’s reductive depiction of Indigeneity in Hawai’i and what it means to engage with the satirical representation of cultural appropriation itself. Maile insists that “Satire is not a metaphor” and “cannot be used metaphorically for decolonization.” Ultimately, the conversation zooms out to think through the ways that state governments look to bureaucratize control of the land to further occupy and control Indigenous sovereignty. In particular, the presence of the US military in Hawai’i is, for Maile, undoubtedly part of a broader process of territorial command by the settler colonial nation. He says that we need to start engaging with this in relation to the general need to slow down the pace of development in order to stave off climate change, and recognize the ways in which Kānaka Maoli and other Indigenous communities demonstrate an unwavering commitment to this reality. There are many moments, he says, where he’s called upon to teach settlers, using his particular expertise, but he still doesn’t believe that there is reciprocity in these relationships a lot of the time. While he trusts the intelligence of scientists, for example, he doesn’t feel that trust returned. And when his hospitality is met with hostility, it is hard to avoid taking a position of refusal. Refusal is maybe the overarching concept in this conversation. “No,” he says, is frequently the means through which Indigenous peoples affirm a right to the land. He doesn’t believe, for example, that existing in relation to the sacredness of the land, or “mastering what the sacred means” can or even should be taught in the university. He sees this when he’s asked to speak on behalf of other Indigenous nations in Canada. Not only is this not an ethical practice, he points out that it ignores the extent to which Indigenous politics is particular, not abstract–a fact that remains woefully misunderstood within settler colonial culture.