by Arcia Tecun
Hosted by Arcia Tecun, an urban and mobile Wīnak (Mayan) with roots in Iximulew (Guatemala), an upbringing in Soonkahni (Salt Lake Valley, Utah), and in relation with Tonga, Aotearoa (New Zealand), and Te Moana Nui a Kiwa (The Great Pacific Ocean). Wai? [pronounced why] (W.A.I.: Words and Ideas) is a podcast based on various issues, topics, and perspectives including critical analysis, reflection, dialogue, and commentary on society, politics, education, history, culture, Indigeneity, and more. The purpose of this project is to share words and ideas that are locally meaningful, globally relevant, and critically conscious.
Language
🇺🇲
Publishing Since
12/13/2019
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March 13, 2025
This episode introduces an idea Dr. Hafoka and I have been working through and developing, inspired by and extending out of the undercommons. We reflect on intellectuals that remain connected to home communities or who emerge organically from communities. We also consider the re-framing of study as common knowledge or as a shared and subversive project grounded in the Black Radical Tradition, which is revealed in the multiple embodied identities we traverse. Undercommons/Undercurrents examples include the social networks of knowledge and even (im)material economic support that occur within marginalised communities based in their relationships that strive for liberation. We spend time focused on Hafoka’s personal and academic work with Kakai Tonga (Tongans) in the airline industry, which broadens the view of Moana-Oceanic and Tonga peoples beyond dominant narratives. This unique presence in this industry has also facilitated a space where cultural values are nurtured, enacted, and spread including the perpetual cultivation of a collective relational consciousness. The undercurrents is in one sense a synthesis of the undercommons with Moana-Oceania relational ethics that is introduced in this talanoa (discussion/dialogue/storying). Additional references that further add context and insights to this episode can be found in the following resources: The Undercommons – Fugitive Planning and Black Study https://www.minorcompositions.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/undercommons-web.pdf From Navigating the Seas to Navigating the Skies:Unloading Tongan Knowledge through the Undercurrents of Airline Employment in the Ano Māsima https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0hn2p9kd Knew World Undercurrents https://www.researchgate.net/publication/365768129_Knew_World_Undercurrents
February 2, 2025
This episode begins with a reflection on this podcast project reaching its 50th episode. I share some additional background and future plans, including some of the symbolism behind the WAI logo. This episode introduces some ideas from the article, Indigeneity as a Post-Apocalyptic Genealogical Metaphor, which explores the metaphysics of indigeneity - Indigenous metaphysics through a global Indigenous consciousness. In conclusion, a diverse range of Indigenous experiences are presented in the constellation of Indigeneities identified as Elder/Local, Continental/Regional, Diasporic, Creole, Born-Again, Global/Trans-Indigenous, which are described in the artice, A Wīnak Perspective on Cosmovisíon Maya and Eco-Justice Education. Terms: Yamanik (Green Stone/Jade in K’iche’-Maya), Hoa/Soa (Partner/Companion – Pair in lea faka-Tonga and gagana Sāmoa). References mentioned or inspirational to this episode: ‘Tongan Hoa: Inseparable yet indispensable pairs/binaries’, by Lear, Māhina-Tuai, Vaka, Ka’ili, & Māhina Pasifika Webinar Series: Signature Event featuring Dr. Tēvita O. Ka’ili The Polynesian Iconoclasm by Jeffrey Sissons Indigenous science (fiction) for the Anthropocene: Ancestral dystopias and fantasies of climate change crises by Kyle P. Whyte Naming, A Coming Home: Latinidad and Indigeneity in the Settler Colony by Flori Boj Lopez The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, and Capitalism in Seventeenth-Century North America and the Caribbean by Gerald Horne The Black Shoals: Offshore Formations of Black and Native Studies by Tiffany Lethabo King The University and the Undercommons: Seven Theses by Fred Moten and Stefano Harney The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study by Stefano Harney and Fred Moten The Empty Wagon: Zionism’s journey from identity crisis to identity theft by Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness by Paul Gilroy Creole Indigeneity: Between Myth and Nation in the Caribbean by Shona N. Jackson Sovereign Embodiment: Native Hawaiians and Expressions of Diasporic Kuleana by Kēhaulani Vaughn Trans-Indigenous: Methodologies for Global Native Literary Studies by Chadwick Allen
January 3, 2025
This episode seeks to share an understanding of coloniality as a global system by engaging with the Matrix film series franchise, focusing on the initial trilogy. The Matrix trilogy is applied as a metaphor to build critical consciousness of coloniality, settler-colonialism, and Indigeneity, while also exploring other social constructions. This compliments an early episode on modernity and Indigeneity and confronts the world as we know it. References: Liliana Conlisk Gallegos – Thinking Coloniality of Power Tedx Jack Forbes – Columbus and Other Cannibals Sylvia Wynter – Unsettling the Coloniality of Being Nelson Maldonado-Torres – On the Coloniality of Being; Against War Anibal Quijano – Coloniality of Power Maria Lugones – Heterosexualism and the Colonial/Modern Gender System Ty Tengan – (En)gendering Colonialism The Red Nation Afropessimism – Frank Wilderson III John Trudell - Trudell David Graeber and David Wengrow – The Dawn of Everything
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