Previous studies of “the Hawaiian sovereignty movement” havecompared different groups’ positions, elucidating complex constellationsof Hawaiian sovereignty organizations yet remaining bound by the limitsof state sovereignty discourse. In this article, I reflect on conversationsbetween activists and on specific actions, so as to explore the spacesbeyond or beneath the surface of state-based models of Hawaiianliberation. Rather than assuming the state to be the center of politicallife, I am interested in the ways people enact new relations and forms of social organization. ‘Kuleana’ and ‘l

hui’ are presented as indigenousconcepts for thinking about and practicing collective autonomy. Thisarticle provides a beginning for exploring how aspects of contemporaryKanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) social movement organizing,particularly among independence advocates, may contribute to thedevelopment of alliances around anarcha-indigenist principles.____________________________________________________________________

Introduction

In 1993, as an estimated ten thousand K

naka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) and our allies marched to the ‘Iolani Palace in remembrance of the centennial of the USmilitary-backed coup against our Queen, it seemed appropriate to talk about asingular “Hawaiian sovereignty movement.” Draped in black, the palace—theHawaiian Kingdom’s seat of government—and the memory of Queen Lili‘uokalanidrew Hawaiians from across the political spectrum. Organizers and visible participantgroups included Hawaiian civic clubs, Ka L

hui Hawai‘i (KLH), and Ka P

kaukau.

Representatives of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA), a state agency created in1978 to receive and administer public land trust revenues “for the betterment of native Hawaiians,” also attended. That same year, grassroots organizers convened apeople’s tribunal with an international panel of judges that traveled to communitiesthroughout the islands hearing testimony on US crimes against K

naka Maoli

, and

Noelani Goodyear-Ka‘

pua

131

the US Congress passed the “Apology Resolution” acknowledging that “theindigenous Hawaiian people never directly relinquished their claims to their inherentsovereignty as a people or over their national lands to the United States, either through their monarchy or through a plebiscite or referendum.”

While some K

nakaadvocated complete independence from the US and others preferred a nation-within-a-nation model of pseudo-sovereignty, “the movement” shared a common goal inraising the consciousness of people in Hawai‘i and beyond.The efforts to raise awareness about injustices for K

naka Maoli and our countryhave been successful in many ways, but little concrete political gain has been securedin the last sixteen years. We still do not control our national lands, the Crown andGovernment lands of the Hawaiian Kingdom that comprise nearly half the total landarea in our archipelago. Some argue that the problem is a lack of unity amongNative Hawaiians. “If they could just agree on what they wanted, they might get it.”This position assumes that first we K

naka Maoli would collectively decide, for example, whether we want US federal recognition or the restoration of our independence. Then we would press for that option in the appropriate arena—whether the US Congress or the United Nations. Such a strategy locates the source of liberation with the occupying state or other external political bodies.This article challenges the popular argument that disagreement is the primaryroadblock for Hawaiian self-determination. One major problem is that our people’srevolutionary energies have become stuck in what Richard Day calls a

politics of demand.

Such an orientation to social action “assumes the existence of a dominantnation attached to a monopolistic state, which must be persuaded to give the gifts of recognition and integration to subordinate identities and communities.”

In this modeof politics, the state is assumed to be the center of political life, and people seeksanction within an already assimilative, disempowering and unequal framework. Dayand others have proposed that the intersections of anarchist, feminist, and indigenistorganizing suggest another way. Underscoring the ways people recognize theauthority within themselves, emergent anarcha-indigenist scholarship and activismvalues the multiple and rhizomatic nature of 21

century anti-imperialist movements.

Affinity across diversity is preferred over unity that demands hierarchy and exclusion.In this article, I discuss the ways Hawaiian notions of

kuleana

(authority andobligation based in interdependence and community) and

hui

(peoplehood)emerge from the conversations and work of K

naka Maoli activists and our non-indigenous allies. I suggest that a liberatory praxis based on

kuleana

and

hui

offersforms of belonging, collective authority and social organization that stem from

Kuleana L

hui: Collective Responsibility for Hawaiian Nationhood in Activists’ Praxis

132

indigenous cultural practice rather than a state-centric paradigm. The questions thatdrive this essay grow from a desire to bring together two distinct, but related, sets of conversations that have increasingly occupied me over the last few years. In myactivist life, a group of Hawaiian independence advocates have been discussing howto put the “move” back into the Hawaiian movement and how to

enact

independencerather than

call

for it. What should independence look like? How can we mobilizeagainst an extremely well-funded, organized, state-supported apparatus that isframing US federal recognition of Native Hawaiians as

the

answer to more than acentury of military-backed denial of Hawaiian self-government and desecration of land?At the same time, in my academic life, I was introduced to an international group of scholars and activists beginning to articulate “anarcha-indigenism” as a set of pathways for bringing about “post-imperial futures”—that is, “a more just andpeaceful world” that moves beyond the violences of continued imperialism throughsustainable practices and resurgent action.

How can we build upon existing spacesof indigenous resurgence and autonomy? In what ways can we push the boundariesof the academy? How do we evolve protocols for interaction and solidarity acrossdifferences of race, gender, sexuality, class, nationality, and other forms of identification? How do we

unsettle

settler state authorities, without replicating theviolences and exclusions we aim to stop?My method in this paper differs from previous studies on contemporary Hawaiianpolitical movement that compare different legal strategies or sovereignty groups’positions against one another. In “K

‘

and K

‘oko‘a: History, Law and Other Faiths,” Jonathan Kamakawiwo‘ole Osorio discusses the way two sovereigntyinitiatives, Ka L

hui Hawai‘i and the Council of Regency, employ mutually exclusiveinterpretations of Hawaiian nationhood, one based on ethnic indigeneity and theother based on national identity.

While he sees these as distinct, conflictingstrategies, he finds that both place faith in the law. Although ambivalent about theextent to which systems of law can create justice, Osorio argues Kanaka have trustedin the law for over 160 years and should continue our shared tradition of fashioningour own laws. Kauanui adds to the understanding of Hawaiian sovereignty claims byfurther explicating two distinct independentist positions; one calling for de-colonization under UN protocols and the other for de-occupation through the HagueRegulations.

Both Osorio and Kauanui imply a desire to imagine politicalrelationships beyond the limits of state sovereignty and point toward “a liberatoryvision that exceeds the legal paper trail.”

While their studies help elucidate complexconstellations of Hawaiian sovereign claims (for which much more critical scholarship

IOLANI - the Royal Hawk

Saturday, July 15, 2023

Painting Hopelessness for Kanaka Maoli - an example: Kaopua's paper PDF

Kuleana Lahui: Collective Responsibility for Hawaiian Nationhood in Activists’ Praxis

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