Sonic Geographies of Hawaiian Whaling between China and Mexico

How the migration of whales and the whalers that pursued them brought together east coast of China and west coast of Mexico
About this Event

This event is part of the SFU Global Asia Program 30th Anniversary, Fall 2026 Speaker Series. You may particpate in-person or online, please specify when registering. Light refreshments will be provided for in-person attendance.

This talk considers how the migration of whales and the whalers that pursued them brought together the east coast of China and the west coast of Mexico in the nineteenth century. In this period, North Atlantic economies sought to procure whale oil as a source of illumination and lubrication for the machines that powered the industrial revolution. The expansion of this industry prompted Euro-American powers to conscript Hawai’i as the crossroads of the Pacific and to rely on Hawaiian labor in this extractive oceanic enterprise. Centering indigenous Hawai’ian (Kānaka Maoli) geographic thought, this paper considers the utility of sound and the sonic dimensions of Pacific whaling to surface submerged Chinese Mexican geographies. It engages sonic speculation to discern patterns of inter-species mobility by imaginatively attuning to the songs that whales and their Kānaka hunters performed as key dimensions of their social lives at sea. Evoking these sounds raises questions about species, space, and gender as Kānaka whalers were almost exclusively men and only male whales produced song. Together they constructed a Chinese Mexican oceanic geography by elaborating a masculinist soundscape in their moves across the Pacific.

About the speaker: Matthew Chin is an Assistant Professor of Women Gender and Sexuality Studies at Emory University. He received his PhD in Anthropology and Social Work from the University of Michigan and his interdisciplinary research engages feminist and queer histories of race of across the Caribbean and Asia. His first book Fractal Repair: Queer Histories of Modern Jamaica uses fractal geometry to construct narratives of the past that seek to redress imperial violences around race, gender, and sexuality that plague Jamaica and the Caribbean more broadly. Part of this work involved partnering with the Caribbean International Resource Network to construct an open access digital archive of the Jamaica Gay Freedom Movement, the first self-proclaimed gay activist organization in the Anglophone Caribbean. Fractal Repair is the co-winner of the John Boswell Prize Awarded by the LGBTQ History Association as well as a recipient of a Duke University Scholars of Color First Book award and an honorable mention for the Gordan K and Sybil Lewis Award by the Caribbean Studies Association. His second project considers the possibilities of Asian Caribbean Thought by exploring the submerged histories, theories and methods that take shape at the intersection of the discursive and material articulations of “Asia” and the “Caribbean.” His writing has appeared in journals such as Public Culture, Interventions, Small Axe, Journal of Homosexuality, and Globalizations. And his research has been recognized by fellowships at Institute of Chinese Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Center for Sexuality, Race and Gender Justice at the University of Kent, the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute and the Center for Black Brown and Queer Studies.

SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings St, Room 1600, Vancouver

Tranportation to the event:

• Bike parking is available at the Hastings entrance of SFU Harbour Centre. Visit the Vancouver campus’s Cycling Resources for details on bicycle racks and cages.
• The nearest SkyTrain station to SFU's Vancouver campus is Waterfront Station. Waterfront Station is also served daily by SeaBus and the West Coast Express commuter train, and numerous buses serve the downtown area.
• Parking is available at 450 West Cordova Street (Impark) and 443 Seymour Street (Diamond Parking). Metered street parking can also be found nearby.