Gary Okihiro (Yale University), “Ideas of Place: Hawai`i’s Built Environment” (Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration)

Gary Okihiro, Ph.D., is a Visiting Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, Race, and Migration at Yale University. In this talk, Gary will pose questions regarding how such actions have and will inform how people see, understand, and thereby construct the built environment. Contrasting worldviews such as imperialism, nationalism, colonialism, capitalism, and modernity, set against the ideas of kinship with and custodianship of the land, waters, and skies, will be raised to frame this session. The built environments of the former plantation system, western urbanism, militarism, and mass tourism are a few of the major forces which have shaped and continue to impact the perception and reality of this island state.