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As a graduate student in a university music department, I have devoted a lot of time to working in associated yet also disparate realms: as a performer, a Teacher's Assistant, and a student. During this time, I have also begun conducting research examining the music department’s social culture. I have observed my colleagues– meaning my fellow graduate students–sacrificing their mental health, physical health, and emotional wellbeing in order to meet ambiguous expectations that I will argue are often rooted in the coloniality of Western Art Music. I have observed and experienced conversations that neglect to acknowledge the ways in which speech and behavioral patterns that currently transpire in the music building support the perpetuation of anti-Blackness, situational color- and cultural- blindness, and white supremacy within the music department at this school, which I have chosen to anonymize as “New England State University (NESU).” Like the bourgeoise in Downtown Crossing, the members of this music department tend to outright ignore the systemic and social inequities that exist in this space, instead consciously or unconsciously choosing to operate with blinders that protect them from fully realizing “the frightening things about…” this music department’s “sense of reality.” Despite some well-meaning but largely superficial acknowledgments of the aforementioned issues, many members of this music department still engage in speech and behavioral patterns—both in public and in private—that I argue do not pursue a path toward these same people’s stated goals of racial justice and musician health and well-being.

This dissertation examines the concept of haole, a Native Hawaiian articulation of whiteness, in two multimodal texts related to the proposed construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna-a-Wākea in Hawai'i. Specifically, I analyze the Aloha 'Aima mural at the University of Hawai'i and the 'Imiloa web interface, as two examples of delinking whiteness through decolonial enactment. Building on this analysis, this project theorizes a decolonial haole rhetoric by redefining the rhetorical character of whiteness from outside a Eurowestern frame. Haole is an example of decolonial enactment because it responds to cultural rhetorics by engaging with the loci of enunciation rather than attending to meaning. Haole rhetoric is a form of whiteness that responds to Hawai'i's specific history of, and resistance to, colonialism. I argue for white settler allyship that works from the rhetorical ground of colonial wounds to counteract the colonial control of meaning. In this dissertation, I have developed a haole methodology that includes the following tenets: 1) any presence of whiteness manifests coloniality; 2) Indigenous knowledges are always taken on their own terms and never through Eurowestern frames of thought 3) the aim is always to inform meaning-making practices for white settlers, as opposed to Indigenous people; and 4) engagement of cultural rhetorics aim of epistemic disobedience, or delinking, from settler logics. Shifting whiteness from communicative identity to inhabiting whiteness as a decolonial enactment manifests whiteness in the peripheries of decolonial futures. An embrace of decolonial haole rhetoric and methodology maintains the colonial history between white settlers and Native Hawaiians, where rather than feigning innocence, white settlers instead consider histories of colonialism as sites on which to build responsible relationalities that may be productive for efforts of decolonization. This project demonstrates how Indigeneity can inform haole epistemological delinking, and how obligations, friendship, and intimacies are forged in colonial situations. / Doctor of Philosophy / This dissertation examines the concept of haole, a Native Hawaiian word for whiteness, in various texts, such as public murals and web interfaces, related to the proposed construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawai'i. Specially, this project theorizes a decolonial haole rhetoric as a new way to be white that is obligated to of cultural knowledges of place and history of whiteness. I argue for settler allyship that understands whiteness not from its own understanding, but instead from the meanings and knowledges of Hawaiian conceptions of whiteness. In this dissertation, I have developed a methodology that includes the following tenets: 1) any presence of whiteness manifests coloniality; 2) Indigenous knowledges are always taken on their own terms and never made relatable towards Eurowestern thought; 3) the aim is always to inform meaning-making practices for white settlers, never Indigenous people; and 4) engagement of cultural rhetorics aims towards epistemic disobedience, or delinking, from settler logics. A haole rhetoric attempts to rethink whiteness in a way that doesn't double down on whiteness's own understanding of itself, but instead a way of inhabiting whiteness that is obligated and ethical to Hawaiian thought and culture. Embracing this a decolonial haole rhetoric doesn't forgive haoles for colonial wrongs, but instead focuses on colonial wrongs as sites to build relationalites of settler allyship.

The Green New Deal has gained international significance as the only prominent climate legislation in the United States. The Green New Deal has also become emblematic of a larger movement for climate justice; however, further analysis of the Green New Deal and its assumptions indicates that it falls short of enacting meaningful justice for those most effected by climate change, but least responsible for causing it. This shortcoming is due to the absence of calls to decolonize. Because of the large role U.S. militarism and imperialism play in contributing to the climate crisis, decolonization must be central to climate justice projects. Marx's concept of the metabolic rift and the phenomenon of humans' separation from nature through colonial acts of dispossession and enclosure of land plays an important role in thinking through the ways the Green New Deal recognizes this same phenomenon but fails to go deeper and recognize broader implications of the metabolic rift for continued U.S. imperialism. Additionally, the rocky legacy of the environmental justice movement raises questions as to whether working with the settler state can lead to meaningful justice. Though the Green New Deal is an operation of state recognition of the climate crisis as connected to other social inequalities, it does not overcome the settler state's reliance on racial capitalism and continued exploitation of people and the environment. A climate justice program that is in fact centered on decolonization and indigenous sovereignty is available and must be supported. / Master of Arts / The Green New Deal has gained international significance as the only prominent climate legislation in the United States. The Green New Deal has also become emblematic of a larger movement for climate justice; however, further analysis of the Green New Deal and its assumptions indicates that it falls short of enacting meaningful justice for those most effected by climate change, but least responsible for causing it. The project of the Green New Deal recognizes the phenomenon of humans' separation from nature and importantly seeks to connect environmental issues to social issues and assert environmental justice through state-led action. Because the Green New Deal fails to question the larger role of the U.S. military's involvement around the world and its pollution and wastefulness, it becomes complicit in the very forces that drive the climate crisis. A project of decolonization, which would involve ending U.S. military involvement at home and abroad and asserting indigenous nations' sovereignty, addresses many of the shortcomings of the Green New Deal.

Yes / Tuck and Yang famously wrote that “decolonization is not a metaphor”…but are archaeologists still thinking metaphorically? The origins of archaeology as a discipline can be traced to colonial endeavours and the pursuit of instilling and maintaining racist hierarchies; as such, colonialist attitudes and approaches have become entrenched in the very foundation of archaeology. Fortunately, the past decades have seen a movement towards rectifying these past injustices, with more recent actions aligned with the broader decolonial movement that can be seen throughout academia. But has any part of archaeology been “decolonized” yet? In this article, I will examine the current state of decolonizing archaeology, with reference to actions occurring in adjacent disciplines, such as heritage and museum studies. Particular attention will be paid to projects that have attempted a decolonial approach, and the results of said project. This will be framed by an honest and critical self-reflection of my own attempts to “decolonise” my research, placing both its successes and failures in context with the broader literature on postcolonial archaeology today. This framework will also delve into the ways in which my identity as a Chinese American migrant working in Britain colours my perspective on decolonising archaeology.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf [46-47]).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf [46-47]). Also available in print.

In the years after 1959 Britain's disengagement from her colonial Empire was comprehensive and rapid. A newly re-elected Conservative government, well aware that many special interests would suffer in the process, set out nevertheless to press the policy of decolonisation speedily to its end. This new tempo of policy was a natural enough response to the experiences of the preceding years. The decade and a half since the war had encompassed both the rise of articulate and aggressive colonial nationalism and a steep decline in Britain's own power in the world. What Macmillan and Macleod recognised, in essence, was that a point had been reached beyond which the continuation of the old gradualist tempo of devolution would precipitate more colonial unrest than Britain could hope to contain. Thus the period from the end of the war to the general election of 1959 appears in retrospect as the penultimate phase of Britain's colonial experience, spanning those events and movements of ideas in terms of which the hurried conclusion of the early sixties may be understood. This work attempts to discuss the domestic politics of colonial policy in the period. It is motivated not by any general belief that the approach to decolonisation is best studied from the domestic point of view, but simply by the hope of illuminating an area of the picture which, by comparison with the events in the colonies themselves, has remained in shadow. The study deals with the activities of the major political parties and certain pressure groups within that area of British political activity having the Colonial Office and Parliament as its focal points. It is organised around two broad questions. Firstly, how were colonial problems and issues dealt with in British politics; that is, what kinds of attitudes and activities were stimulated among parties and groups by the existence, and the changing character, of this area of British responsibility? Secondly, how far did domestic political activity affect the course of governmental policy?

published_or_final_version / English Studies / Master / Master of Arts

This dissertation critically examines how U.S. print media sought to represent the realities of decolonizing and newly independent countries in West Africa by focusing on pivotal events and charismatic leaders from the “non” vote in Guinea in 1958 to the radical appeal of Amilcar Cabral in Guinea-Bissau in 1973. The framing and agenda setting of mainstream media coverage turned leaders and events into metonyms not only for peoples and nations but also for Africa and Africans as a whole. However, the complexities of West Africa, such as political rivalry in the Congo or civil war in Nigeria, troubled such representations. Thus this dissertation tracks the widening of coverage and opening up of representations in African American and New Left print media in a time of global unrest as well as Cold War.