How scientists think; About 'natives', for example. A problem of taxonomy among biologists of alien species in Hawaii

This article examines how biologists in Hawaii investigating 'invasive species' classify 'native' and 'alien' organisms, particularly in the epistemologically ambiguous zone of waters. Framing analysis in terms of the Sahlins-Obeyesekere debate, the essay explores how, far from being a straightforward matter of biological definition, such classification presents taxing taxonomic and political questions, especially in Hawaii, where the word native resonates with descriptors used by and for the indigenous people of Hawaii. Drawing on ethnographic research in the overlapping worlds of marine biologists and Native Hawaiian educators and activists, the article scrutinizes the shifting boundaries of nature, culture, agency, and nine in the classificatory practice of 'invasion biology'. Looking in particular at accounts of 'alien algae' and amphidromous crustaceans, the article explores how 'context' is diversely deployed to frame accounts of native and alien marine creatures in Hawaii. A meditation on modes of metataxonomic and parataxonomic classification concludes.