Unsettling nature as liberal public good

Abstract

This response critically reflects on three themes from Dr. Hi'ilei Julia Hobart's 2024 Political Geography plenary address, “Indigenous Place-making Amidst Settler Colonial Leisure.” Weaving together critiques of conservation and tourism, these themes help unsettle a key premise of liberal environmentalism: nature as universal public good. Hobart's insights deepen political-geographical understandings of state environment-making and Indigenous resistance, and how these shape ongoing struggles against socio-ecological violence and the inherent unsustainability of settler capitalism.