DISCUSSION SEMINAR

’The Persistence of the Indian: Legal Recognition of Native Hawaiians
and the Opportunity of the Other’

Prof. Jon Goldberg-Hiller, Department of Political Science, University of Hawai‘i

When: Friday 15 December, 4-5.30pm
Where: Room 402, Building 3, University of Technology Sydney
Info: 9514 2714

After a short introduction from Prof. Goldberg-Hiller the seminar will discuss a paper that he recently presented at the critical legal conference in Hyderabad, 'The law of the Law in an Age of Empire' (www.clcnalsar.in). The paper abstract is copied below.

"Proposed American legislation that would give federal constitutional status to Native Hawaiians has met with strong indigenous resistance. This contemporary contest over the means of self-determination reveals the ways in which law and rights provide inescapable idioms for indigenous sovereignty at the same time that they form the primary obstacles that must be overcome. In this paper, I examine the uneasy analogy of American Indians deployed by Native Hawaiian opponents of recognition. I argue that this concern over identity and image should be understood as an anthropomorphism of the
law, and I explore the meaning of this abjection for legal authority and for postcolonial relations among indigenous peoples."

For a copy of the paper, please send an email to: transforming.cultures@uts.edu.au