Habitus, mobilized

Abstract

ABSTRACTAs humanity struggles with the onslaught of climate change and our uncertain future, we find ourselves facing the same kinds of resource challenges that island populations have known for centuries. In the case of postsettler societies, responsible environmental stewardship must engage with Indigenous understandings of knowledge and the world. I make this argument by critiquing Bourdieu's theory of habitus and engaging with colonization's long history of influencing, though not quite obliterating, precolonial ontologies and epistemologies. In the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia, these understandings take the form of an Indigenous habitus that blends precolonial and colonial spaces, forming the basis of resistance to power inequalities. There and across the globe, recognizing and working with this kind of practice‐based habitus is essential to protecting threatened natural and cultural resources. [habitus, resources, land use, colonialism, ontology, mana, resistance, Indigenous peoples, Oceania]