Building on racism: The Porteus Hall controversy at the University of Hawai'i.

Abstract

In the 1970s, and again in the 1990s, a controversy sparked at the University of Hawai'i and the surrounding community over the name of one of its campus buildings that was meant to honor Australian psychologist Stanley Porteus. Using archival evidence, this article draws on the voices of various community members to reconstruct this history. Spanning multiple decades and happening alongside other controversies such as those over race and intelligence research, as well as movements promoting Hawaiian rights and sovereignty, the case of Porteus Hall offers a unique look at the global impacts of settler-science and scientific racism. Community members touched on several complex issues of legacy, presentism, and settlement, including the meanings and consequences of racism. One of the salient points community members made was that, in addition to claims to land and lifestyle, settler-scientific figures like Porteus represented claims to knowledge over local people themselves. Presented here are potential processes of deliberation and decolonization centered on our practices of commemoration that can suggest paths to expanding psychology's epistemology and methodology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).