Place-Based Book Club for Teaching within the Context of Hawaiʻi
The Place-Based Book Club invites new and long-standing faculty to participate in thoughtful discussions about teaching on our campus. Through engaging with carefully selected readings, participants explore strategies to better support student success and deepen their understanding of Hawaiʻi’s rich cultural landscape.
Place-Based Book Club’s Featured Book of the Fall
Detours: A Decolonial Guide to Hawai‘i
edited by Hōkūlani K. Aikau and Vicuña Gonzalez
Detours is a collection of essays, stories, art, maps, and scholarship by various Kanaka Maoli contributors that subverts the traditional travel guide format to offer a critical perspective on Hawai‘i beyond the romanticized “tropical paradise” image and tourist destination.
This volume challenges the dominant narratives of tourism and highlights Native Hawaiian challenges with the problems brought about by colonialism, military occupation, tourism, food insecurity, high costs of living, and climate change. Authors engage readers with the complex history of Hawai‘i and efforts to restore and engage, ethically and respectfully, with Hawaii’s communities and environment, and cultural practices.
About the Editors
Hōkūlani Aikau (Kanaka ‘Ōiwi) is Professor and Director of the School of Indigenous Governance at the University of Victoria. She is the author of A Chosen People, A Promised Land: Mormonism and Race in Hawaiʻi (University of Minnesota Press, 2012). With Vernadette V. Gonzalez, she coedited Detours: A Decolonial Guide to Hawaiʻi (2019) and they edit the Detours Series with Duke University Press. She has also collaborated on two other book projects: Indigenous Resurgence in an Age of Reconciliation (University of Toronto Press, 2023) and Introduction to Indigenous Feminisms (Routledge, 2025). Dr. Aikau is also the editor for the Pacific Islands Monograph Series (University of Hawaiʻi Press).
Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez is Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and Affiliate Graduate Faculty of American Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Gonzalez’s interdisciplinary humanities-based research broadly examines cultures of imperialism, with a focus on the United States and its colonial territories and interventions in Asia and the Pacific. A central thematic in her work is how race, Indigeneity, gender, and sexuality intersect and operate, sometimes together and sometimes in opposition, in the cultural terrains of empire.
Detours Contributors
Malia Akutagawa • Adele Balderston • Kamanamaikalani Beamer • Ellen-Rae Cachola • Emily Cadiz • Iokepa Casumbal-Salazar • David A. Chang • Lianne Marie Leda Charlie • Gregory Chun • Joy Lehuanani Enomoto • S. Joe Estores • Nicholas Kawelakai Farrant • Candace Fujikane • Linda H. L. Furuto • Sonny Ganaden • Cheryl Geslani • N. Trisha Lagaso Goldberg • Noelani Goodyear-Ka‘ōpua • Tina Grandinetti • Craig Howes • Aurora Kagawa-Viviani • Noelle M. K. Y. Kahanu • Haley Kailiehu • Kyle Kajihiro • Halena Kapuni-Reynolds • Jessica Kau‘i Fu • Terrilee Keko‘olani • Kekuewa Kikiloi • William Kinney • Francesca Koethe • Karen K. Kosasa • Kapulani Landgraf • Nanea Lum • Laura E. Lyons • David Uahikeaikalei‘ohu Maile • Brandy Nālani McDougall • Davianna Pōmaika‘i McGregor • Laurel Mei-Singh • Peter Kalawai‘a Moore • Summer Kaimalia Mullins-Ibrahim • Jordan Muratsuchi • Hanohano Naehu • Malia Nobrega-Olivera • Katrina-Ann R. Kapā‘anaokalaokeola Nākoa Oliveira • Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio • Leon No‘eau Peralto • No‘u Revilla • Kalaniua Ritte • Maya L. Kawailanaokeawaiki Saffery • Dean Itsuji Saranillio • Noenoe K. Silva • Ty P. Kāwika Tengan • Stephanie Nohelani Teves • Stan Tomita • Mehana Blaich Vaughan • Wendy Mapuana Waipā • Julie Warech
The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa is dedicated to becoming a Native Hawaiian place of learning. The university community is made up of diverse cultural and linguistic groups who contribute to the core mission of the University to “to serve the people and places of Hawaiʻi, and our neighbors in the Pacific and Asia” (quoted from UH Mānoa Strategic Plan 2015-2025). Our faculty comes from across the globe, bringing a wealth of perspectives and often limited experience with Hawaiʻi’s unique cultural and educational context. The Place-Based Book Club fosters a collaborative exchange of ideas, empowering faculty to create inclusive and culturally responsive learning environments.
Place-based educational approaches encourage teaching and learning that are grounded in the land, peoples, history, and cultures of the place. The Place-Based Book Club will provide an open forum for deep conversations about:
- What aloha ʻāina means and how it can be implemented in teachings and learnings happening on our campus
- Hawaiʻi’s cultural heritage and how it should inform and guide our pedagogy
- How the historical and cultural underpinnings of the place (may) affect student interactions and relationships in the classroom.
The Place-Based Education Library promotes faculty awareness about teaching within the context of Hawaiʻi. Visit our Place-Based Library page for more information.
Place-Based Book Club for Teaching within the Context of Hawaiʻi is supported by Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education (POD Network) to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion across the higher education institutions. The OFDAS Center for Teaching Excellence will coordinate book clubs for Spring 25, Fall 25, and Spring 26 semesters at UH Mānoa. All faculty, staff, and campus community members are encouraged to join.