To Dwell and To Reinhabit: Kiana Davenports’s House of Many Gods as Bioregional Literature

Abstract

Environmental degradation has become a pivotal issue in Hawai’i nowadays. The policies of United States’government and military has shaped the Hawai’ian ecology. Through the process of ecological imperialism,started from the beginning of American colonialism, both the Hawai’ian’s landscape and their connection withthe environment is disrupted. Modern Hawai’ian ecology nowadays is a postcolonial ecology, which was, andstill is molded by the American imperial power. As a product of colonialism, Hawai’ians’ have becomealienated with their ancestral traditions, especially regarding interrelation between human and non-human.Taking cues from Lawrence Buell’s assertion that environmental crisis is a crisis of the imagination, modernHawai’ian literature tries to reorient human–non human relationship from indigenous Hawai’ianepistemology. As seen in Kiana Davenport’s the House of Many Gods, traditional Hawai’ian perspective isreimagined to reterritorialize Hawai’ians in their previous environmental outlook, before the arrival of theAmericans. This study argues that by several bioregional concepts such as dwelling, and reinhabit, KianaDavenport’s the House of Many Gods can be stated as a bioregional literature.