Displacing Natives: The Rhetorical Production of Hawai'i (Pacific Formations: Global Relations in Asian and Pacific Perspectives) [Paperback]

Houston Wood (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 27, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0847691411 | ISBN-13: 978-0847691418 | Edition: KDenn

This insightful study examines the strategies used by outsiders to usurp Hawaiian lands and undermine indigenous Hawaiian culture. Drawing upon historical and contemporary examples, Houston Wood investigates the journals of Captain Cook, Hollywood films, commercialized hula, Waikiki development schemes, and the appropriation of Pele and Kilauea by haoles to explore how these diverse productions all displace Native culture. Yet, the author emphasizes the voices that have never been completely silenced and can be heard asserting themselves today through songs, chants, literature, the internet, and the Native nationalist sovereignty movement. This impassioned argument about the linkages between textual and physical displacements of Native Hawaiians will engage all readers interested in Pacific literature and postcolonial studies.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Wood's book offers very strong critical analyses of dominant cultural productions and discursive struggles, with a central focus on the contested terrain of representation. Displacing Natives is an excellent choice for courses that focus on on US colonialism, Hawaiian Studies, literary and visual representations of indigenous peoples, and ethnic studies. In this time of 'ena makani (stormy winds) it is important to see a scholarly work that explains the enduring process by which Hawaiian indigeneity is continuously effaced in and through the dominant popular culture. (The Contemporary Pacific )

Wood's original and insightful work on Hawaii is sure to engage a wide variety of readers, from those interested in Pacific literature and postcolonial studies to haoles who have decided to make this unique place their home. (The Review Of Communication )

This book is an account of the historical formation of Hawai'i that directly challenges the ever onward and upward unfolding of history embedded in the principal texts on Hawaiian history that have long been and remain the dominant interpretations. Wood traces the history of and acutely analyzes diverse practices that dispossessed and displaced native culture. (The Hawaiian Journal Of History )

About the Author

Houston Wood spent many years as a macadamia nut farmer on the island of Hawaii. He is the coauthor of The Reality of Ethnomethodology and now teaches English at Hawaii Pacific University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers; KDenn edition (May 27, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0847691411
• ISBN-13: 978-0847691418
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,192,074 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Houston Wood was born in Kentucky, studied at Northwestern University and the University of California at Santa Barbara before jumping across the Pacific, in the 1970s, to become a farmer on the island of Hawai'i. He returned to urban life 20 years later to complete a PhD at the University of Hawai'i and has been teaching at Hawai'i Pacific University since 1997.

Wood has published three books (one with Hugh Mehan) and is currently completing another that present evidence that humans are becoming increasingly more peaceful as they learn rational methods to transform conflicts without violence.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Splendid study, making Hawai'i resonate with wit and concern, May 8, 2000

By 

Rob Wilson - See all my reviews

This review is from: Displacing Natives: The Rhetorical Production of Hawai'i (Pacific Formations: Global Relations in Asian and Pacific Perspectives) (Paperback)

"Displacing Natives" is a splendid study, making Hawai'i resonate with wit and concern, by tracking how the "rhetoric of demonization" was followed by a "rhetoric of preservation" that, in both historical instances and rhetorical tropes, worked to displace the Hawaiian Natives and their prior mythologies of place and nation. The wry chapter on the Hollywood movies of "safe savagery" makes an important and lasting contribution to the semiotics of imagining Hawai'i. This book would be of value to all students of Hawaiian literature and culture, and to scholars of Pacific native cultural studies as well. When transnational cultural and postcolonial studies turn to work up the Pacific (when the heck would that be?), this fine book will be here waiting, despite the poor marketing tactics or the lack of market flash.