Transformation of Legal Identities and the Relation to Entitlement Claims

这项规划补助金将使探索性研究， 制定一项全面的法律的改革建议， 身份 该项目调查了"麻风病人"的身份如何 在夏威夷的莫洛凯岛上， 国际旅游和地方，区域， 争夺夏威夷土地的国际斗争。 研究的一个中心理论焦点是冲洗出 法律的历史的再造过程及其意义 当代身份。 "麻风病人"就是一个例子 一个曾经被排斥和惩罚的法律的身份， 现在正在转变和动员，以确保权利， 作为财产 这种转换是在 夏威夷的殖民历史和目前的努力， 世纪在Kalaupapa麻风病人聚居地保留其 在建立定居点的过程中， 国家历史公园 该项目追溯了一个 新的地方身份的"麻风病人"，考虑如何当代 汉森病患者创造了一个法律的，文化的， 为自己的政治空间，重新塑造一个 在新殖民主义游客的背景下， 通过该行业，他们的权利主张可以得到保证 和/或威胁。 该研究有助于对这一问题的实证和理论研究。 法律和其他制度构建身份的方式， 与此同时， 他们的历史并提出权利要求。 它有更宽的 法律的与医学交叉的理论含义 定义，州和联邦土地概念的冲突 土地保有权和使用权，以及下列因素在法律的领域造成的变化： 急剧变化的经济形势。

This planning grant will enable exploratory research for development of a full scale proposal on the transformation of legal identities. The project investigates how the identity of "leper" is being transformed on the island of Molokai, in Hawaii, in the context of international tourism and of local, regional, and international struggles over the acquisition of land in Hawaii. A central theoretical focus of the research is to flush out the process and meaning of reclaiming or reinventing legal histories and contemporary identities. The case of "the leper" is an example of a legal identity that was at one time excluded and punished and now is being transformed and mobilized to secure entitlements, such as property. This transformation is examined in the context of the colonial history of Hawaii and the present effort by remnants of the nineteenth century leper colony in Kalaupapa to retain their rights to the settlement in the process of its establishment as a national historical park. The project traces the emergence of a new local identity for "lepers" by considering how contemporary sufferers of Hansen's disease create a legal, cultural, and political space for themselves, reworking the imagery of an oppressive colonial past in the context of a neocolonialist tourist industry through which their claims to entitlement may be secured and/or threatened at the same time. The research contributes to empirical and theoretical work on the ways in which law and other institutions construct identities while at the same time structuring forums which people use to reshape their histories and make entitlement claims. It has wider theoretical implications for the intersection of legal and medical definitions, the conflict of state and federal notions of land tenure and use, and the changes wrought in the legal landscape by a dramatically changed economic situation.