Virtual Summit Submission

University of Hawaii at Manoa
Political Science

Biography

Matthew Rummel is a senior at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa majoring in Political Science with a focus on International Relations, alongside a Business minor and a Peace Certificate/Peace Corps Prep. His academic interests include environmental governance, migration, and community resilience, strengthened through his 2025 South Sulawesi field school as a Tyler Center Fellow and his 2024 internship with the Hawaiʻi State Senate. On campus, he serves as Vice President of the Environmental Justice Club and competes nationally with the University of Hawaii Ballroom Dance team. After graduation, he plans to work in state policy before pursuing a master’s degree and a career in Foreign Service

Project

Restorying Forest Biographies Through Oral Histories in Sulawesi
Forest priorities are determined by the authority of the state through forming policy on whether a forested area is conserved or harvested. Nevertheless, these policies and the resulting land management practices can be significantly different from their assumed relationships. Our team examined ways to document what we refer to as environmental biographies. This project took place in Indonesia where over two-thirds of the country is categorized as forests. We convened three multidisciplinary research teams comprising University of Hawaiʻi and Hasanuddin University students around state forests to record our environmental biographies. Our groups worked in an area of Sulawesi that surrounds the Bantimurung Bulusaraung National Park. Using a framework of decolonial methodologies, we undertook a variety of qualitative methods: participant observation, oral history interviews, and focus group discussions. In restory-ing the forest from a local lens, we learned about the dynamic narratives and processes that [re]produce these landscapes. They cannot be separated from historical legacies of development policy, indigeneity, and livelihood strategies of agricultural practices and migration.