Off the stage, on the page: on the relationship between advocacy and scholarship

Abstract

When and how should scholars of religion draw a line between advocacy and research activities? In what ways does advocacy contribute to or cut against scholarly credibility? Addressing these questions from the intersection of the academic study of religion and Indigenous Studies, this article opens by asserting that both fields are frequently hampered by deferential treatments of their subject matter, a problem that is potentially exacerbated when scholars in these fields engage in forms of political advocacy. Problematizing this narrative, the author turns to his ethnographic experiences in Hawai'i with regard to burial-protection struggles in order to describe ways his theoretical commitments and advocacy activities stand in tension and how he has attempted to navigate these competing but sometimes complementary elements of his scholarly life. In this context, a heuristic definition of advocacy is advanced in order to sketch a spectrum of forms, ranging from direct advocacy (e.g., physical action, legal testimony, or publication) to indirect advocacy (e.g., sharing documents, brainstorming about pending issues, or providing transportation to a meeting). The article concludes with reflections on advocacy and changing institutional demands upon scholars in the humanities and social sciences with reference to perceived public relevance.

Key Words:

• advocacy
• Indigenous traditions
• Hawai'i
• burial protection

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Dana Naone Hall and Halealoha Ayau for their ongoing dialogue with me as I work to understand living Hawaiian traditions. I would also like to thank members of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Working Group at the University of Colorado for their support, collegiality, and constructive criticism of a draft of this article. I am also grateful to Michael Stausberg for his keen comments and sharp editorial eye.

Notes

¹So opens Marshall Sahlins' (1995, ix) account of why he was right in his fierce and protracted debate with Gananath Obeyesekere about the apotheosis of Captain Cook and, more generally, the consequences of identity assertions in the context of cultural analysis. This epigraph is less about taking sides – though my sympathies are decidedly marshaled – than it is meant to gloss the fact that I am a latecomer to a rich debate about the politics of scholarship in Hawai'i.

²For insider–outsider debates within Religious Studies, see, e.g., Orsi (2005) and McCutcheon (2003). Regarding the politics of scholarship and voice in Hawaiian Studies, see, e.g., Linnekin (1991), Trask (1991), and, more recently, Tengan (2008).

³My formulation ‘on page, off stage’ is influenced by James C. Scott's (1990) now classic work, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts.

⁴Subsequently, I have been asked to be a witness in a suit against the hotel, which I have agreed to do.

⁵I have written about the Kawaiaha'o Church conflict in several places, most extensively in ‘Varieties of Native Hawaiian Establishment: Recognized Voices, Routinized Charisma, and Church Desecration’(Johnson 2013).

⁶Naone Hall is well known as a poet as well as a Native Hawaiian rights activist, with particular reference to burial protections. She served on the Maui and Lanai Islands Burial Council for 17 years, holding the position of chair for several terms. Her publications include Mālama: Hawaiian Land and Water (Naone Hall 1985); ‘Sovereign Ground’ (Naone Hall 2010); and ‘The Road to Cultural Justice’ (Naone Hall 2013); and ‘Paʾa Ke Kahua’ (Naone Hall 2014).

⁷See, for example, ‘The Long Road to a Final Resting Place,’ Durango Herald, 10 March 2013, http://durangoherald.com/article/20130310/NEWS01/130319951/The-long-road-to-a-final-resting-place--; and ‘“Anasazi Sickness”: Relic Raiders do More than Mess with History,’ Salt Lake Tribune, 18 July 2009, http://www.sltrib.com/ci_12861752.

⁸For example, while conducting research during the summer of 2012 on the history of the Kawaiaha'o Church cemetery in the archives of the Hawaiian Historical Society, I came across an obscure but robust account of the events of 1843 involving the British Admiral Richard Thomas and the restoration of Hawaiian independence (Chamberlain 1889). It was a great pleasure to share this document with Kekuni Blaisdell, who for decades has agitated for the restoration of Hawaiian self-rule and for whom this particular historical episode is profoundly significant. More recently, I came across a little-known volume on Hawaiian collections in the Berlin Staatliche Museum (Keappler, Schindlbeck, and Speidel 2008), which I shared with Halealoha Ayau, Po'o (head) of Hui Mālama I Na Kūpuna O Hawai'i Nei, who is now in the process of exploring repatriation claims regarding these collections.

⁹The paper, ‘Renewing the Sacred: Religious Language, Traditional Identities and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act,’ became my first published article, which appeared in this journal (Johnson 2002).

¹⁰In the service of his point, Lincoln downplayed his contributions to scholarship on contemporary communities, including Indigenous communities (see, e.g., Lincoln 1994).

¹¹The following several paragraphs were first written for a lecture entitled ‘In the Moment: The Relevance of the Humanities and Social Sciences for Analyzing Religion in Real Time,’ which I delivered in 2012 at the University of Alabama.

Additional information

Greg Johnson teaches in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado, where he is also an affiliate faculty member of the Department of Ethnic Studies and the Center of the American West.