Elders' knowledge and the ancestry of experience in Hawaii

Environmental degradation and dispossession of Hawaiians from the land are consequences of colonization. Among Hawaiians there is a tremendous drive toward cultural revitalization and self-determination. This study focused on how Hawaiian kupuna (elders) construct the cosmos, locate humans within it, fix values with future generations, and describe social change through their talk. It also explored how Hawaiians use these lessons and address issues about schooling and knowledge. Finally, this study examined ways that university students and professors connect to indigenous knowledge, construct cosmologies, and discuss social change. Within their talk these individuals all define the nature of knowledge and its transmission.;This study's purpose was to understand how the kupuna articulate a particular way of knowing and worldview, which is taken up by younger generations, comprising a critical element in cultural revitalization. It also aimed at understanding how formulations about indigenous cosmology and social action emerge from the academy, entering an academic forum where Hawaiians are a topic under discussion.;This study was based on field work and in-depth interviews with two kupuna and six younger people in Hawai'i, and with two professors and four students in a Canadian university. Transcribed tapes of interviews and field notes were analyzed for process and content using qualitative methods, particularly ethnomethodology and interpretive inquiry.;Claims about the cosmos articulated in The Kumulipo and other works in the Hawaiian corpus were explicated alongside claims of historical materialism. The applicability of theoretical frameworks to the talk of the kupuna was interrogated. Subsequently, clams from the Hawaiian corpus were used to enter the talk of the kupuna.;Constructions of social change differ greatly between kupuna/younger Hawaiians and Canadian university students/professors. Cosmologies, philosophies of knowledge, and practices of knowledge emerged in the interviewees' talk.;Kupuna's constructions of the cosmos and social change constitute powerful "ancestry of experience" or organizing frame for present-day Hawaiian experience. Findings were related to current Hawaiian discourse and debates in anthropology and history about Hawaiian social action. The ways and extent to which Hawaiian practices of knowledge are invalidated in academic (Western) knowledge-making were discussed.