The University of Hawai?i at Manoa's (UHM) most recent Strategic Plan highlights the university's mission to be a Hawaiian Place of Learning (HPoL) while sustaining a commitment to global competitiveness. At the same time, multiple stakeholders at UHM have continued to push for greater recognition and engagement with the university as an institution that celebrates Hawaiian ways of knowing, particularly in regard to Hawaiian history, language, and culture. Students at UHM therefore encounter a discursive crossroads, as they have been admitted to a flagship, public university in the United States, which carries with it a significant degree of cultural capital due to the hegemony of north-south relations that privilege northern knowledge (Luke, 2001). Research in higher education has shown that international students in particular attend U.S. universities in order to acquire the cultural capital of studying in the global north in order to enhance their competitiveness (Connell, 2017; Kim, 2023). Consequently, international students are likely to be caught between these Discourses of internationalization and Indigenization. Building on the scholarship on international students' belonging, engaged linguistic landscape and place in higher education, this dissertation seeks to answer two questions: (1) How do international students understand UHM's situated place identity? And (2), How do international students who engage in learning more about UHM as a HPoL position themselves in relation to their previous experiences? Drawing on a conceptual framework consisting of "positioning" (Bamberg, 1997), "place attachment" (Scannell & Gifford, 2010), and "mo?oku?auhau", I examine how international students position themselves amidst Discourses of neoliberalism and Indigenization. Data analyzed include (a) UHM's Strategic Plans (SPs); (b) campus huaka?i (tour) interviews; (c) focus group interactions and (d) focus group follow-up interviews with participants. "Document analysis" (Bowen, 2009; Merriam, 2009) with particular attention paid to lexical chains (Paltridge, 2021) was used to analyze the three SPs. Findings suggest that international students possessed uneven understandings of Hawai?i and UHM, but that learning about Hawai?i and Hawaiian epistemologies was important for international students' personal growth and development, their social connections, and their affection toward Hawai?i. Findings also indicated that the place dimension, in the context of an aloha ?aina university, encompassed an epistemological aspect; participants' positive alignment with Hawaiian epistemologies shows their positive bond to Hawai?i as a place. One conclusion is that while globalization may act as a centrifugal force propelling students to pursue education abroad, engagement with Hawaiian knowledge functions as a centripetal force, anchoring students to place. This work aspires to serve as a reference point for researchers in higher education to start understanding the role of newcomers and sojourners at universities with regard to local and Indigenous values, cultures, languages, and histories. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]