Ho'okele Waiwai: Renavigating Oceans of Connectivity Towards Biocultural Abundance

This thesis explores how Kanaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian) organizations, methodologies, and conceptual frameworks can provide and inspire solutions to current social-ecological crises and urgent societal questions regarding what it means to live well in relation with one another and our environment. It contributes to existing literature on Kanaka ʻŌiwi biocultural restoration initiatives in Hawaiʻi, the holistic value of their work, and their potential to inform future conceptual frameworks for project planning and evaluation across a variety of disciplines in both public and private sectors. Hoʻokuaʻāina is a nonprofit organization based in Kailua, Oʻahu that embraces growing people and community through the cultivation of kalo. I engaged closely with Hoʻokuaʻāina as a primary case study and co-investigator of three primary research questions: What are Kanaka ʻŌiwi understandings of waiwai (wealth, value)? What are Kanaka ʻŌiwi metrics for waiwai? And what are their implications for our future local and global economies? I establish paumalū (piko-centered praxis) as my foundational methodological approach and employ Kanaka ʻŌiwi practices of kilo hua ‘ōlelo (linguistic observation), kilo ʻāina (environmental observation), and kilo kanaka (human-social observation) to study waiwai at Hoʻokuaʻāina. In alignment with the concept of makawalu (“eight eyes”; applying diverse perspectives to gain a deeper understanding of a topic), I present my methods and findings over the course of eight chapters, each utilizing a unique lens to study Hoʻokuaʻaina and its work in the context of the primary research questions. I designed a survey and semi-structured interview guide with conceptual questions about Hoʻokuaʻāina’s potential impact on staff and interns’ health, knowledge, relationships, and future plans. Five staff members and twenty-three interns participated in both the survey and individual interviews with me over the course of Summer 2020. I also conducted and observed several guided group activities with Hoʻokuaʻāina staff, followed by additional interviews with five key Hoʻokuaʻāina community members. I synthesized themes from the open-ended survey responses, interviews, and group activities through iterative thematic analysis, and I conducted descriptive statistics on the survey data, including frequency counts on responses to Likert-like scale questions. I present key participant quotes and group-level survey statistics in narrative form throughout the thesis, as well as newly composed oli (chants), mele (songs), and personal moʻolelo (stories) as creative and culturally-appropriate mediums to illustrate key ideas in each chapter and my personal connections to the research. I developed a new Kanaka ʻŌiwi biocultural framework for understanding waiwai, called ʻUmeke Metrics, which offers innovative ways to conceptualize and evaluate problems and solutions within and across a multitude of emerging fields, including holistic healthcare, regenerative economics, restorative ecology, and place-based education. ʻUmeke Metrics contributes to a growing collection of conceptual tools that can be applied and adapted to confront various local and global social-ecological crises today. My analysis suggests that Hoʻokuaʻāina and similar Kanaka ʻŌiwi biocultural restoration organizations are effectively addressing a multitude of societal issues across social, political, economic, ecological and cultural dimensions. Contemporary research and applications of Kanaka ʻŌiwi ways of knowing and doing, such as those described in this thesis, can contribute substantially to envisioning and shaping future societies rooted in healthy, holistic, social-ecological relationships and value systems, which is essential to ensuring biocultural abundance for future generations.

Keywords:  Earth Systems Program
School of Earth Energy &amp; Environmental Sciences
Hawaii
Native Hawaiian
Kanaka Oiwi
biocultural
Hookuaaina
kalo
Thesis
Advisor: Vitousek Peter
Biestman Karen