The Paradox of Protected Natural Area Landscapes: An Interpretation of Kaʻena Point Natural Area Reserve, Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi As a Gardened Space

MA University of Hawaii at Manoa 2002Includes bibliographical references (leaves 107–114).This thesis critically evaluates protected natural areas in terms of the production of space and the cultural representation and definition of nature within them. Idealized representations of nature in protected areas are mediated through Western cultural discourses; space is seen as being wild, natural and conceptually autonomous from the human realm. By using the garden analogy as a metaphoric device, I deconstruct some common representations of nature to reveal how various Western rhetorics and discourses dominate ideas about natural space in protected areas. I interpret the landscape of Kaʻena Point Natural Area Reserve and illustrate that it can be seen as a socially produced space in which nature is controlled, restored, and modified. Paradoxically, protected natural areas are created as wilderness spaces, but their nature is partly constructed (physically and conceptually) and wholly defined through cultural discourse and representation