Boys’ Violence in Settler–Colonial Contexts: Illegitimate Civic Duty and Pathways to Violence

ABSTRACT

The data for this paper come from an 11-year participant observation study in a public high school in Hawaiʻi. The study included 25 interviews with working-class and poor boys of color, most of whom were of Pacific Islander ancestry. This manuscript considers whether everyday acts of violence among the boys in the study stemmed from common motivations that cut across race, gender, and class divides. The study also explored whether the boys’ violence could be tied to historic, multifaceted inequalities within the settler-colonial order of Hawaiʻi. The boys authored a form of violence that can be called “illegitimate civic duty,” which allowed them to demonstrate their alignment with mainstream nationalist ideologies and masculinity norms. In some ways, the boys’ violence in enacting their civic duty could be tied to common motivations that affect boys across the U.S. In other cases, however, the boys’ use of violence could be linked with their unique consciousness and view of the historic injustices embedded in the settler-colonial system of Hawaiʻi. The findings are used to weave together general and subgroup-specific perspectives on male violence.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ I use “multiple pathways” and “subgroup specific” pathways interchangeably to avoid repetition. However, the term multiple pathways refers to the totality of subgroup specific theories.

² Lunch group boys and girls usually met in separate rooms. Gender fluid teens attended the girls’ group. I floated between the two groups so that I could get to know all the students.

³ Haole is a nuanced Native Hawaiian word reflecting Hawaiʻi’s colonial history. Originally meaning something like “foreign” or “foreigner,” at the time of this study, haole meant White person.

⁴ I received the University of Hawai“i Committee on Human Subjects” approval to conduct this research.

⁵ I used two sets of parental consent and student assent forms, one for the interviews and the other for the observations.

⁶ “Bing-Bing” is an anti-Asian slur. Although Brooks is Native Hawaiian, many Native Hawaiians are of mixed ancestry and are, thus, targets of many forms of negative racialization.

Additional information

Funding

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 1 U49 CE 000749-01

Notes on contributors

Katherine Irwin

Katherine Irwin is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Hawai‘i, Manoa. Her research areas include gender, race, and class inequalities, colonial criminology, youth culture, women and drug use, youth violence, and delinquency prevention programming. Her most recent book, with Karen Umemoto, is titled Jacked Up and Unjust: Pacific Islander Teens Confront Violent Legacies and was the 2018 winner of the outstanding book award given by the American Sociological Association’s section on Asia and Asian America.