REMAPPING THE BOUNDARIES OF POLYNESIAN HOSPITALITY: KĀNAKA MAOLI STRATEGIES TO SUSTAIN ANCESTRAL RELATIONSHIPS TO MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL ECOLOGIES OF KO‘OLAU KA‘ĀINA O KA WAI A KANE

broadhurst, philip

REMAPPING THE BOUNDARIES OF POLYNESIAN HOSPITALITY: KĀNAKA MAOLI STRATEGIES TO SUSTAIN ANCESTRAL RELATIONSHIPS TO MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL ECOLOGIES OF KO‘OLAU KA‘ĀINA O KA WAI A KANE

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broadhurst_hawii_0085A_11305.pdf (266.89 MB)

Date

2022

Authors

broadhurst, philip

Advisor

Tengan, Ty P.

Department

Anthropology

Abstract

ABSTRACT Although Hawaiian people are often touted for their hospitality and generosity, perhaps more frequently than any other distinct culture group on the planet, the sociopolitical and economic implications of propagating hoʻokipa or “Hawaiian hospitality” as a local, domestic, and global symbol, and institution of modern Hawaiian society, has largely remained an overlooked, or arguably taboo topic for social scientific inquiry, which this dissertation addresses. A central question of the research is: How do Hawaiians of today reckon with local, domestic, and global demands for Hawaiian hospitality? Broadly, this dissertation uses the lens of hospitality to examine the complexity of negotiating the permanent presence of temporary occupants in Hawaiʻi. Specifically, this ethnographic analysis examines some of the ways that hoʻokipa is contemporarily practiced among Hawaiians to sustain ancestral human-environment relationships to Koʻolau Maui which is also commonly called “East Maui”. The dissertation demonstrates some of the ways ho‘okipa is used by Kānaka Maoli of today in multiple ways to achieve various objectives in Ko‘olau Maui. The research revealed that ho‘okipa is used to establish rapport with “outsiders” (strangers) to share weather or roadway concerns to foster higher levels of safety among visitors to the region. Villagers of Ko‘olau Maui also frequently utilize ho‘okipa as a method to increase visitor awareness of the cultural landscape in order to shield or minimize the ravages of overtourism inflicted upon it. In this context, ho‘okipa acts as an adaptive cultural mechanism utilized to sustain connections to the cultural landscape by collapsing the social distance between residents and visitors. The dissertation will display through text, sound, and image that contemporary forms of ho‘okipa in Ko‘olau Maui are often transmitted as a strategy in order to sustain ancestral relationships to the material and spiritual ecologies of the region. The dissertation argues that contemporary practices of ho‘okipa or Hawaiian hospitality is at once an integral dimension of an underlying indigenous value system that functions as an adaptive cultural mechanism to negotiate shifting social conditions and political climates, as well as a monolithic institutional hegemonic edict that animates the very conditions that many Hawaiians of today are seemingly too often compelled to adapt to.

Keywords

Cultural anthropology, Ethnic studies, Film studies, hospitality, ho‘okipa, paradise, visual ethnography, watershed

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/10125/102147

Extent

353 pages

Rights

All UHM dissertations and theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission from the copyright owner.

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Ph.D. - Anthropology

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