Nā 'A'ali'i Kū Makani: Stories of Native Hawaiian Female Survivance

• In Event: 60.073 - Women and Race in Hawai'i: Educational Enactments and New Possibilities

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore and present the strength, resiliency, and brilliance of select Native Hawaiian female educational leaders who have transformed highly contentious (Alfred, 2004) and racist educational spaces in Hawai‘i back into Hawaiian places of learning. This paper draws on survivance (Vizenor, 2008) to illuminate the women’s courage and fearlessness. In addition, this paper utilizes the ‘a‘ali‘i kū makani framework (Lipe, 2014) to understand and conceptualized the cyclical nature of the women’s experiences in which they are constantly shaped and transformed by many influential factors and thus are equipped to transform other spaces. In order to learn from the stories of these women, the method of mo‘olelo aku, mo‘olelo mai (sharing and receiving interconnected stories) (Lipe, 2014) was utilized. Therefore, data, in the form of life stories and narratives, informs the findings. Specifically, the findings direct our attention to an emerging framework, namely the hō‘ālani framework, in which five Hawaiian principals are identified and connected. This framework helps us to: 1) Understand how the women were shaped to become transformative leaders, 2) Utilize a Hawaiian and female-informed model to engage ourselves and also other people/spaces in transformation to become agents of love and respect for Hawai‘i.

Author

• Kaiwipuni Lipe, University of Hawaii - Manoa