Abstract
Environmental degradation has become a pivotal issue in Hawaiâi nowadays. The policies of United Statesâgovernment and military has shaped the Hawaiâian ecology. Through the process of ecological imperialism,started from the beginning of American colonialism, both the Hawaiâianâs landscape and their connection withthe environment is disrupted. Modern Hawaiâian ecology nowadays is a postcolonial ecology, which was, andstill is molded by the American imperial power. As a product of colonialism, Hawaiâiansâ have becomealienated with their ancestral traditions, especially regarding interrelation between human and non-human.Taking cues from Lawrence Buellâs assertion that environmental crisis is a crisis of the imagination, modernHawaiâian literature tries to reorient humanânon human relationship from indigenous Hawaiâianepistemology. As seen in Kiana Davenportâs the House of Many Gods, traditional Hawaiâian perspective isreimagined to reterritorialize Hawaiâians in their previous environmental outlook, before the arrival of theAmericans. This study argues that by several bioregional concepts such as dwelling, and reinhabit, KianaDavenportâs the House of Many Gods can be stated as a bioregional literature.
Highlights
Environmental degradation had become a major concern in this modern era
While American influences concerning the environment spread globally, this study focuses in an area of intersection between American settlers and indigenous people in a colonial context, the American state of Hawai’i
Since the arrival of the Whites started from the James Cook’s expedition in the 1778, Hawai’i had undergone an ecological imperialism, a term coined by Alfred Crosby in his book Ecological Imperialism(1986)
Summary
Environmental degradation had become a major concern in this modern era. As one of the leading countries inindustrial consumption and production, America plays an important role in causing this phenomenon. As Hawai’ians have become alienated with their ancestral tradition due to American colonial intervention, Hawai’ian literature tries to “reimagine this displacement between people and place through poetics.” (DeLoughrey and Handley, 2011:14) Hawai’ian literature are advocative and politically oriented, as highlighted by the phenomena that many writers such as Hakunai Kay-Trask, Kiana Davenport, and. Both their fiction and non-fictional work highlights strong anti-American critique and advocates a return to Hawai’ian sovereignty Among those writers, this paper limits the scope of the analysis on Kiana Davenport’s novel the House of Many Gods(2006). Reorientation of traditional Hawai’ian perspective, especially concerning human and nonhuman relationship is a pivotal theme in this novel. (Huggan and Tiffin, 2011:1) Davenport’s effort to reorient Hawai’ians in their pre-colonial tradition highlights many tenets of bioregional perspective. Further explanation of bioregionalism will be explained in the subsequent paragraphs
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