Project Overview
Nā Pahuhopu
Project Objectives
ʻImi Moʻolelo ʻĀina
Compile a history of the Palauea Cultural Preserve through the collection, organization, and process historical information that pertains to place names, land tenure, history, stories, practices, and notable figures.
I Moʻokūʻauhau Naʻauao
Incorporate secondary academic and archaeological resources to critically analyze the history of Palauea and further demonstrate continuity between the Palauea Cultural Preserve and other cultural sites within Honuaʻula.
Nā Ala Aloha ʻĀina
Offer an academic contribution to the educational programs and preservation efforts in Palauea.
Kekaulike
Title III Collaborative Grant: UH Maui College & UH Mānoa
This collaboration of two unique campuses within the UH system aligns the overall goals and activities to institutional strengths and weaknesses, and employed identified action items from key seminal documents like the UH System Hawaiʻi Papa o Ke Ao Native Hawaiian Advancement Task Force Report and the UH Mānoa Ke Au Hou Native Hawaiian Advancement Task Force report. (Kekaulike Team 2017,19)
The three main goals that are identified are : the creation of a "Lāhui Research Center," strengthening Academic Affairs &the Transfer Pipeline between Maui and Mānoa, and Establishing & Strengthening Maui Place-Based Practicum & Field Schools.
Palauea has been a site for various programs under these Activities that take place on Maui. These include: Mauiakama, the Hawaiian Language immersive field school, The Ea Hawaiʻi Fieldschool, a Hawaiian Studies focused, multidiscilplinary residential field school, and the Kekaulike internships, professional and research development opportunities for undergraduate students. This site is a product of these programs that is authored by a student that has completed a transfer journey from UHMC to UHM and has benefitted greatly from the Kekaulike Grant and team.
In turn, the site aims to contribute to the educational efforts that have formed and maintained a relationship with Palauea over several years by partnering with the 2021 Kekaulike Summer Internship as an research tool for interns that will be positioned with various Hawaiian and Hawaiian serving entities on the island of Maui.
Academic Context
Indigenous Culture Based-Education
"We believe that Hawaiian knowledge structure differs significantly from the Western system of education" (Kahakalau 1999, p. 5)
“Indigenous culture-based education aims to build on and enhance the linguistic, cultural, cognitive, and affective strengths possessed by Indigenous students. CBE (Cultural Based Education) often includes efforts to revitalize languages, knowledge, practices, and beliefs lost or suppressed through colonization or occupation (Demmert & Towner2003). These approaches are consistent with the concept of cultural advantage, revealing “funds of knowledge” where others have only seen deficits (Gonzalez, Moll, & Amanti, 2005).”
Settler-Colonialism
Settler colonialism is an inclusive, land-centered project” (Wolfe, 2006, p. 393), the ultimate goal of which is the elimination of Native presence on the land and erasure of Indigenous sovereignty so that the settler colonizer can replace them with their own physical,cultural, social, and political presence (Kaomea, 2014; Kauanui & Wolfe, 2012).
Under the conditions of a settler colonial capitalist economy, the state engages in the structural operations of subdivision, of producing terra nullius, “land belonging to no one,” eviscerating the land of history and meaning. In a system premised on the logic of subdivision, the state and developers draw red boundary lines around isolated “parcels” of land to fragment wahi pana and wahi kapu into smaller and smaller isolated, abstracted spaces that they claim have no continuities and thus “no cultural significance.” (Fujikane 2016)
Issues in Preservation
In Hawai‘i, the ongoing crisis in historic preservation and the CRM field has been left unaddressed for decades. Historic Preservation laws and regulations are in place, but there’s been a lack of support at the state (and federal) level to uphold their own standards and enforce their rules and laws or to manage information and resources responsibly and sensitively (National Park Service 2013; Mills and Kawelu 2013; Kawelu 2014). The problems in CRM are systemic and have many layers, but a core issue is the limited role of Native Hawaiians and kama‘āina in determining the fate of our own resources and shaping the outcomes of development in our communities. (Kaliʻuokapaʻakai Collective 2021, 7)
Aloha ʻĀina
"Aloha 'āina expresses an unswerving dedication to the health of the natural world and a staunch commitment to political autonomy, as both are integral to a healthy existence. Although it is often imperfectly translated to ‘love for the land’ and ‘patriotism,’ the aloha part of this phrase is an active verb, a practice rather than as merely a feeling or belief” (Goodyear-Kaʻōpua 2013, 32).
Wahi Kūpuna Stewardship
Wahi kūpuna, much like the term wahi pana (storied/legendary place), refers to a physical site, area, or landscape that is significant to Kānaka ‘Ōiwi, past and present. While every place in Hawai‘i could be considered special or significant, this term can broadly encompass ancestral landscapes where kūpuna (ancestors) repeatedly and purposefully interacted (lived, worked, played sustained life from), but also places of purposeful nonuse(wao akua or mountain summit realms)
