Hauntings and entanglements of race: re-reading the journals of an early American missionary woman in Hawai‘i

Abstract

As a way to develop a more somatic response to race and the legacy of injury and violence towards the first peoples of the Hawaiian nation, this paper’s aim is to draw a connection between the early writings of American women to Hawai‘i and my own positionality as a feminist scholar in present day Hawai‘i. Using a feminist, postcolonial lens, I provide a content analysis of Lucia Holman’s diary, which chronicles her journey to Hawai‘i in 1820, as one of seven missionary women from the American Missionary Board. Third, I make a case for how archival texts as a lived process of research can move towards a deeper social understanding of race relations within the complexities and colonial injuries of the historical present. Finally, I propose that archival texts can be used in developing a critical anti-racist pedagogy in working with teachers and educators in Hawai‘i. The larger question of this project asks if it is possible to produce anti-colonial or anti-oppressive responses from historical artefacts of colonisation, using the documents themselves that were used to justify that colonisation. These hauntings and entanglements ask us to recognise our responsibility in addressing racist thinking and practices by examining the embodied and cognitive perceptions of difference through a literacy act of critical reading as anti-racist pedagogy.

Keywords:

• Feminist theory
• anti-racist pedagogy
• archival research
• Hawai‘i

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge my grandmother, Kathleen Murphy, whose generous and kind spirit continues to shape my thinking and responses to the challenge of fostering educational perspectives that move us towards healing and love. To the people, land and ancestral spirits of Hawai‘i, I am indebted and grateful for the beauty and care I have received.