The Department of Anthropology Colloquium Series Presents

Mauka and Makai: Exploring Cultural Ideas about Beaches and Mountains as Public Spaces in Brazil and Hawaii

Christian Palmer
Instructor of Anthropology
Windward Community College
Co-Sponsored by the UHM Department of Geography and Environment

Thursday, February 28, 3:00 pm, George Hall 227

Conflicts around urban development and public spaces in Itacare, Brazil illustrate the ways that tourism transforms people's relationship with each other and the environment. In this small Brazilian town, beaches, parks, and trails are sites for local and poorer residents to access the tourism market and interact with the growing tourist economy. Similarly in Hawaii, access, maintenance, and control over beaches and trails have become sites of conflict as the state and local communities wrestle over the impact of tourism growth and the changes as tourism shifts away from Waikiki and into more natural spaces. The development of virtual public spaces through the internet and social media also change these debates as images and information become harder to control and recreate people's relationship with space and the environment.

Christian Palmer is an instructor of Anthropology at Windward Community College. His research in environmental anthropology examines tourism, conservation, and surf culture in Brazil and Hawaii. He has also looked at the intersection of culture and the environment through community based conservation and development in extractive reserve in the Brazilian Amazon and Hawaiian ethnobotany. He has graduate degrees from University of California, Santa Cruz and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Sciences.