Tension at the Nexus of the Global and Local: Culture, Property, and Marine Aquaculture in Hawai'i

Abstract

Technological development in open-ocean mariculture has opened up the possibility of a new growth industry for Hawai'i, yet its introduction has not been without controversy. Marine aquaculture requires changes in property institutions that govern the ocean space, a key resource for marine aquaculture. This paper examines initial opposition to ocean leasing as a way of under-standing the contradictory technical and societal demands of a technological project. We incorporate insights from agrofood studies that emphasize the importance of building networks if the industry is to succeed within the globalized food systems. We argue that comprehensive and synthetic analysis at the ‘front end’ of a technological project is critical to identify strategic issues that need to be addressed; and that insights from planning literature bring in potential tools for organizing actions to negotiate the tension and to (re)contextualize a technological project such as this.