Indigenous Feminist Notes on Embodying Alliance against Settler Colonialism

Abstract

Abstract How can we enact meaningful forms of solidarity across Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities? This essay, which focuses specifically on the context of settler colonialism in Hawaiʻi, examines existing or potential alliances between Indigenous feminisms and transnational feminisms. Written from a Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) feminist perspective, the essay looks to the foundational work of Kanaka Maoli scholar-activist Haunani-Kay Trask as a too often overlooked theorist of settler colonialism writ broadly. The essay also looks more specifically at Trask’s theorizing of Asian settler colonialism in the Hawaiʻi context, in relation to contemporary examples of conflicts between Native Hawaiians and the state, as well as Native Hawaiian activists and white feminists. Overall, the essay questions how reframing Asian settler colonialism in more concerted conversation with Indigenous feminisms and transnational feminisms might provide space to move our practices of solidarity against settler colonialism, imperialism, nativism, militarization, and environmental destruction into a generative space for Kānaka Maoli and non-Indigenous peoples alike.