Challenges to local identity: the Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance and Sovereignty Movement

Casem, Audrey (2023) Challenges to local identity: the Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance and Sovereignty Movement. Masters thesis, Northern Arizona University.

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Abstract

Generally, people living in the continental United States are unfamiliar with the history of Hawai’i. Hawaiian history has been understood as a history of colonization whose major turning points were the arrival of Europeans, annexation by the United States in 1898, and then finally statehood in 1959. The Native Hawaiian population, or Kānaka Maoli, and their histories were largely ignored due to the power of colonization and the role it has played in creating new truths. The historiography of Hawai’i has shifted in recent years, largely thanks to social and cultural movements like the Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance in the 1960s and 70s. Now, historians work to dispel the misinterpretations of the role of the Kānaka Maoli after European discovery. This project is an attempt to inform others about a major cultural revolution that occurred at the same time as other much more well-known movements such as the Chicano Movement or the Black Power Movement in the continental United States. It explores how the idea and definition of the “local,” which is integral to Hawaiian identity, changed over time since the Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance. I believe it is vital to look at both the Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance and Native Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement to understand the implications of Hawaiians trying to address dispossession and imagine a better future for themselves and their communities, and as a result, to see how the definition of local has changed in Hawai’i.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Publisher’s Statement:	© Copyright is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the Cline Library, Northern Arizona University. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.
Keywords:	Hawaii; Identity; Renaissance; Sovereignty; Native Hawaiians;
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DU Oceania (South Seas)
NAU Depositing Author Academic Status:	Student
Department/Unit:	Graduate College > Theses and Dissertations College of Arts and Letters > History
Date Deposited:	29 Aug 2023 17:23
Last Modified:	29 Aug 2023 17:23
URI:	https://openknowledge.nau.edu/id/eprint/6097

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