Song, Surfing, and Postcolonial Sustainability

Abstract

This chapter begins with one cultural practice–surfing–that was developed to an extremely high level by indigenous peoples of Hawai'i over several millennia before it was appropriated by settler colonialists and exported globally. It asks what music associated with surfing reveals about the processes of colonization. Then the Polynesian Voyaging Society is presented as a case study. Originating during the Hawaiian Renaissance and the surfing community in the early 1970s, the project uses musicking as a catalyst for expressing human engagement with complex environmental and social contexts. It also provides a model for a decolonized future built on resilient, sustainable cultural and resource management.