On Feburary 27, Michael Ing delivered a talk titled, “Hawaiʻiloa and the End of the Kanaka Diaspora,” for the Center for Biographical Research at the University of Hawaiʻi. The talk explored how approximately half of Kanaka (Hawaiians) live beyond the islands of Hawaiʻi, but these off-island Kanaka are not always recognized as a significant part of the Lāhui (Hawaiian community), where discourses of identity often privilege “rootedness” to the islands over the “routedness” of Kanaka living abroad. The presentation articulated a culture of mobility in Kanaka terminology to show how Kanaka around the world count within the Lāhui. It explored the moʻolelo (account) of Hawaiʻiloa as a way of showing that our kūpuna (ancestors) traveled across their known world establishing multiple “Hawaiʻis,” and that they sought out knowledge from beyond the islands of Hawaiʻi to enrich the Lāhui. The presenation is available online.
The College of Arts