Oceanic knowledge and national space-time in pacific history

Nineteenth-century efforts to map the Pacific, with its sinking reefs, growing volcanoes, and offshore topographies of currents and winds, expanded the scientific understanding of planetary history and raised questions about the position of the present in geological space and time. Subsequent attempts to synchronize disparate traditions of knowledge on a scientific timeline offered an opportunity to put forward claims to national ambition or Indigenous modernity. I make this argument by outlining the making of national temporalities in Hawai'i, Japan, and Tuvalu at disparate moments in the history of the Anthropocene. The episodes in this essay showcase different processes in which conflicting temporalities informed the framing and reframing of the nation by the state.