Issues of Place, Nationalism and Clichés of Diversity: Statehood Day in Hawai`i

By:
Sabine Deiringer
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The tourism industry as well as the state politics of Hawai`i celebrate the island state’s multiculturalism, Aloha Spirit and several other clichés of diversity. Yet those clichés, as well as everyday social reality of the islands, are thoroughly contested. By looking at events in Honolulu on Statehood Day 2006 as ethnographic example, I describe present-day negotiations of concepts of diversity, democracy, citizenship and nationhood. On the one hand, this examination leads to explorations of Hawaiian history, as well as theories of nationalism commonly used in the social sciences. On the other hand, my examination analyzes how the so-called color-blind movement of the United States and its local associates appropriate clichés of multiculturalism and diversity in order to suppress indigenous voices, and indigenous history in particular. The call for diversity itself, I argue, can turn into a tool of exclusion rather than inclusion.


Keywords: Diversity, Nationalism, History, Citizenship, Statehood, United States of America, Place, Indigenous
Stream: Nations, Nationalism, Communities
Presentation Type: Virtual Presentation in English
Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

Sabine Deiringer

PhD Student, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge
Cambridge, UK

Sabine Deiringer is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge, UK. She has carried out anthropological research in Europe and the United States, and has area interests in Europe, North America, the Pacific and arenas such as the United Nations. Her research interests include post-socialist and similar transformations, formal organizations (esp. the non-profit sector), law and legal anthropology, science and technology, the anthropology of politics and change, and social theory. Her recent fieldwork in Hawai`i furthermore triggered an interest in history, education and place-making.

Ref: D07P0280