Remembering Our Intimacies: Mo'olelo, Aloha 'Aina, and Ea

Recovering Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) relationality and belonging in the land, memory, and body of Native Hawaii is the focus of Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio's Remembering Our Intimacies. It argues for the methodology of (re)membering Indigenous forms of intimacies and uses a close reading of the moʻolelo of Hiʻiakaikapoliopele to provide context and interpretation of Hawaiian intimacy and desire.

Format: Hardback
Length: 232 pages
Publication date: 05 October 2021
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press

Hawaiian "aloha ʻāina" is frequently defined in Western political terms, such as nationalism, nationhood, and even patriotism. In Remembering Our Intimacies, Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio focuses on the personal and embodied expressions of aloha ʻāina to separate it from the impacts of colonialism and occupation. Remembering Our Intimacies aims to reclaim Native Hawaiian notions and ethics around relationality, desire, and belonging, firmly rooted in the land, memory, and body of Native Hawaii, by working at the intersections of Hawaiian knowledge, Indigenous queer theory, and Indigenous feminisms.

Remembering Our Intimacies advocates for the methodology of (re)membering Indigenous forms of intimacies. It does so through the metaphor of a ' upena - a net of intimacies that incorporates the variety of relationships that exist for Kānaka Maoli. It uses a close reading of the moʻolelo (history and literature) of Hiʻiakaikapoliopele to provide context and interpretation of Hawaiian intimacy and desire by describing its significance in Kānaka Maoli epistemology and why this matters profoundly for Hawaiian (and other Indigenous) futures.

Offering a new approach to understanding one of Native Hawaiians most significant values, Remembering Our Intimacies reveals the relationships between the policing of Indigenous bodies, intimacies, and desires; the disembodiment of Indigenous modes of governance; and the ongoing and ensuing displacement of Indigenous people.

Dimension: 216 x 140 x 25 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781517910297