The Tectonics of Power: the Hawaiian Iconoclasm and its Aftermath

Abstract

ABSTRACT An anthropology of architecture has much to gain by exploring, in a range of cultural contexts, the tectonic dimension of power identified, but left largely undeveloped, by Foucault. When walls actively plunge into fields of social relations they include and exclude, divide and join, muffle, silence, conceal, contain, confine and visually impress, sometimes in radically new ways. These ideas are pursued in relation to a dramatic series of events here termed ‘the Hawaiian iconoclasm’. A tectonic shift from temples and men's eating‐houses to royal residences and family eating‐houses is shown to have been integral to a transformation of chiefly power in 19th century Hawaii.

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