The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Religion in Hawai'i: Implementation Efforts, Pragmatic Leverage, and Conceptual Friction

In the summer of 2022, a team of scholars, lawyers, and cultural experts convened to explore avenues for community-level implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in Hawai'i. The workshop was organized to solicit feedback on current issues in Hawai'i and to assess ways the community might gain leverage through the UNDRIP. Larger order questions were also addressed, including the political and cultural stakes of engaging such an instrument. Stepping back from participation in the project, I offer critical reflections on the contested ‘fit’ of the instrument in Hawai'i, paying specific attention to ‘religion’ and ‘indigenous’ categorically and with reference to ongoing struggles, including the dispute on Mauna Kea concerning the Thirty Meter Telescope. My analysis places particular emphasis on the shaping force of Indigenous religious traditions and legal mechanisms upon one another, a dynamic process that poses considerable theoretical and practical challenges.