Ep. 52: Madau-Moana Relational Ethics with Kehau Fagatele-Folau
Dr. Kehaulani Fagatele-Folau joins this episode to introduce her doctoral research. We begin with Indigenous concepts and methods she used from the Madau-Moana to make sense of some of the colonial contexts Indigenous women of Oceania traverse in the academy. Some themes we discuss include Indigenous feminism, interconnectivity, sharing space, and relational ethics by using Niu/Neo/Knew Tā-Vā. Fagatele-Folau shares a re-imagined R.I.P. acronym, and deploys it as metaphor for laying to rest systems of power, as they work through the process of ‘becoming’ a Madau-Moana cosmopolitan. We reflect on the possibilities in being rooted and mobile, and continuing to learn confidence with care through a broad sense of kinship.
“Not all the powers that be are all the powers that are” – Kehau Fagatele-Folau
Terms with introductory definitions: Madau (Pohnpeian for Ocean/Thought); Moana (Ocean in Tongan); Talanoa (Critical relational dialogue); Iroir (reflection/beautiful view/to position yourself for a beautiful view); Hoa (pair/partner/companion/connection); Hoamālie (harmonious partnership); Hoatamaki (imbalanced partnership); R.I.P. (Relationality, Intersectionality, Positionality); Mana (honour, prestige, potency, authority).
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35:51
Ep.51: Undercurrents with 'Inoke Hafoka
This episode introduces an idea Dr. Hafoka and I have been working through and developing, inspired by and extending out of the undercommons. We reflect on intellectuals that remain connected to home communities or who emerge organically from communities. We also consider the re-framing of study as common knowledge or as a shared and subversive project grounded in the Black Radical Tradition, which is revealed in the multiple embodied identities we traverse. Undercommons/Undercurrents examples include the social networks of knowledge and even (im)material economic support that occur within marginalised communities based in their relationships that strive for liberation. We spend time focused on Hafoka’s personal and academic work with Kakai Tonga (Tongans) in the airline industry, which broadens the view of Moana-Oceanic and Tonga peoples beyond dominant narratives. This unique presence in this industry has also facilitated a space where cultural values are nurtured, enacted, and spread including the perpetual cultivation of a collective relational consciousness. The undercurrents is in one sense a synthesis of the undercommons with Moana-Oceania relational ethics that is introduced in this talanoa (discussion/dialogue/storying).
Additional references that further add context and insights to this episode can be found in the following resources:
The Undercommons – Fugitive Planning and Black Study
https://www.minorcompositions.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/undercommons-web.pdf
From Navigating the Seas to Navigating the Skies:Unloading Tongan Knowledge through the Undercurrents of Airline Employment in the Ano Māsima
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0hn2p9kd
Knew World Undercurrents https://www.researchgate.net/publication/365768129_Knew_World_Undercurrents
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41:51
Ep.50: Post-Apocalyptic Indigeneities
This episode begins with a reflection on this podcast project reaching its 50th episode. I share some additional background and future plans, including some of the symbolism behind the WAI logo. This episode introduces some ideas from the article, Indigeneity as a Post-Apocalyptic Genealogical Metaphor, which explores the metaphysics of indigeneity - Indigenous metaphysics through a global Indigenous consciousness. In conclusion, a diverse range of Indigenous experiences are presented in the constellation of Indigeneities identified as Elder/Local, Continental/Regional, Diasporic, Creole, Born-Again, Global/Trans-Indigenous, which are described in the artice, A Wīnak Perspective on Cosmovisíon Maya and Eco-Justice Education.
Terms: Yamanik (Green Stone/Jade in K’iche’-Maya), Hoa/Soa (Partner/Companion – Pair in lea faka-Tonga and gagana Sāmoa).
References mentioned or inspirational to this episode:
‘Tongan Hoa: Inseparable yet indispensable pairs/binaries’, by Lear, Māhina-Tuai, Vaka, Ka’ili, & Māhina
Pasifika Webinar Series: Signature Event featuring Dr. Tēvita O. Ka’ili
The Polynesian Iconoclasm by Jeffrey Sissons
Indigenous science (fiction) for the Anthropocene: Ancestral dystopias and fantasies of climate change crises by Kyle P. Whyte
Naming, A Coming Home: Latinidad and Indigeneity in the Settler Colony by Flori Boj Lopez
The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, and Capitalism in Seventeenth-Century North America and the Caribbean by Gerald Horne
The Black Shoals: Offshore Formations of Black and Native Studies by Tiffany Lethabo King
The University and the Undercommons: Seven Theses by Fred Moten and Stefano Harney
The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study by Stefano Harney and Fred Moten
The Empty Wagon: Zionism’s journey from identity crisis to identity theft by Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro
The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness by Paul Gilroy
Creole Indigeneity: Between Myth and Nation in the Caribbean by Shona N. Jackson
Sovereign Embodiment: Native Hawaiians and Expressions of Diasporic Kuleana by Kēhaulani Vaughn
Trans-Indigenous: Methodologies for Global Native Literary Studies by Chadwick Allen
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57:05
Ep.49: Coloniality and the Matrix Trilogy
This episode seeks to share an understanding of coloniality as a global system by engaging with the Matrix film series franchise, focusing on the initial trilogy. The Matrix trilogy is applied as a metaphor to build critical consciousness of coloniality, settler-colonialism, and Indigeneity, while also exploring other social constructions. This compliments an early episode on modernity and Indigeneity and confronts the world as we know it.
References:
Liliana Conlisk Gallegos – Thinking Coloniality of Power Tedx
Jack Forbes – Columbus and Other Cannibals
Sylvia Wynter – Unsettling the Coloniality of Being
Nelson Maldonado-Torres – On the Coloniality of Being; Against War
Anibal Quijano – Coloniality of Power
Maria Lugones – Heterosexualism and the Colonial/Modern Gender System
Ty Tengan – (En)gendering Colonialism
The Red Nation
Afropessimism – Frank Wilderson III
John Trudell - Trudell
David Graeber and David Wengrow – The Dawn of Everything
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39:43
Ep.48: Warning - These Ideas Will Eat Your Pets!
This episode focuses on ideas about critical thinking in systems of power. Topics include critical pedagogy, critical consciousness, belief, agnotology (study of ignorance), and aesthetics as ethics. Concepts mentioned include the banality of evil and the illusory effect with pop culture references to the films Don’t Look Up and The Lorax as well as the TV Series Barbaren (Barbarians). The reflection shared draws on historical perspectives and contexts to thoughtful questioning and remembering.
References mentioned include:
Agustín Fuentes - Why We Believe, 2019.
Lewis R. Gordon, Fear of Black consciousness, 2022.
Simon Frith, Music and Identity, 1996.
George Gmelch, Baseball Magic, 1971.
Robert N. Proctor and Londa Schiebinger, Agnotology: The making and unmaking of ignorance, 2008.
Adrienne Mayor, Suppression of Indigenous Fossil Knowledge, 2008.
Ania Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, 2002.
John Trudell, Trudell (2005); DNA:Descendant Now Ancestor (2001).
Ty Kāwika Tengan, (En)gendering Colonialism: Masculinities in Hawai‘i and Aotearoa, 2002.
Paulo Freire, Education for Critical Consciousness, 2005.
Henry Giroux, On Critical Pedagogy, 2011.
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951.
Elizabeth Ellsworth, Why Doesn’t This Feel Empowering? Working Through the Repressive Myths of Critical Pedagogy, 1989.
Alison Jones, The Limits of Cross-Cultural Dialogue: Pedagogy, Desire, and Absolution in the Classroom, 1999.
Hosted by Arcia Tecun, an urban and mobile Wīnak (Mayan) with roots in Iximulew (Guatemala), an upbringing in Soonkahni (Salt Lake Valley, Utah), and in relation with Tonga, Aotearoa (New Zealand), and Te Moana Nui a Kiwa (The Great Pacific Ocean). Wai? [pronounced why] (W.A.I.: Words and Ideas) is a podcast based on various issues, topics, and perspectives including critical analysis, reflection, dialogue, and commentary on society, politics, education, history, culture, Indigeneity, and more. The purpose of this project is to share words and ideas that are locally meaningful, globally relevant, and critically conscious.
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