Queer Feminist Science in Hawaiian Archaeology

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Future Is Fluid...and So Was the Past: Challenging the 'Normative' in Archaeological Interpretations" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Queer theory is an important tool for critically analyzing ideas about the past that are normalized and reproduced to the detriment of descendant populations. This approach is particularly relevant when investigating the social structures that governed daily life in the past. Historically, academic work in Hawai‘i tends toward interpretations of the household that are homogenous and static, reflecting the colonial past more than Hawaiian history. Issues with these interpretations include the diminishment of the roles women played in Hawaiian communities. Queer theory shifts the currently accepted paradigm, providing a new approach to analyzing Hawaiian household data. I engage with queer theory in this paper to interrogate the structures of power that perpetuate colonial patriarchal interpretations. Queer feminist science approaches are relevant to this endeavor both in questioning the actions we assume are deviant in the past and reorienting ourselves to considering instead what Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) defined as deviance. This paper addresses these themes through the investigation of material remains from southeast Maui. The examination of architectural features and artifacts excavated from seven kauhale house complexes compared against historical and archaeological literature brings to the forefront practices that refuse to align with perpetuated assumptions about the Hawaiian past.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Future Is Fluid...and So Was the Past: Challenging the 'Normative' in Archaeological Interpretations   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25438