 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. Aloha. I'm Roger Jelonek, your host on Book Wells, Think Tech Hawaii, and my guest today is Kealoha Fox, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, where she seems to run just about everything. And she's the author of a new book called Mana Lahui Kanaka, and we'll talk about that today. Kealoha, tell us about yourself first, where are you from, and some of your history. So you're not from Oahu, I think? So I am from Kunia. My ancestral home lands for my family is from the island of Maui, and then Kuhala on Hawaii Island. And how did you find your way to Oahu? Largely for school, yet to be totally honest. When I was doing my undergraduate degree, I went to the Hawaii Pacific University just right down the road, where I studied psychology and anthropology and history. And then my most recent time at school was at the Johnny Byrne School of Medicine here in Kaukako. And what have been your academic background, your interests? So my PhD is actually in biomedical science. My specialization is in clinical research. My real passion is really native Hawaiian health and medicine. But then I also have a master's degree in clinical psychology, too, to help serve native Hawaiians and other ethnic minorities in their behavioral health needs. And what was the focus of your clinical research? So my work is actually largely looking at Hawaiian conceptualizations of illness and disease, though what we call ma'i. So it can mean a different type of physical imbalance or an emotional entanglement, or it can also be a spiritual sickness as well. And you do that, you also work particularly on health issues at OHA? I do, yeah. So I'm part of a fabulous team at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs where we cover issues of not just health but education, housing, governance, aina, so land and water, resources and rights, a whole spectrum of issues that impact native Hawaiians. And when you're not writing this book, which of those do you actually do, do you do them all? Probably primarily health. That's really my passion, and then that's my academic training and background as well. Okay, let's get into this book, which is a big project. Yes. Give me the history of it. So I'm one of several writers and editors, and so this was really a team approach. So we're all Kanako O'Iwi, we're all native Hawaiians that came together as part of a research endeavor that started in about 2009, 2010, led by my boss in the Pohana of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Dr. Kamana O'Pono Crab. And so he set this framework for us to look at resilience and strength and cultural identity to help uplift and to ho'ulu our Lahui. So to grow a beloved nation. Just elaborate a little bit on the resilience theme, what that actually means. So especially in the social sciences and health and education, conventional metrics, measures usually talk about inequities. A lot of times we're talking about disparities or where the gaps are. Us as indigenous scholars, as Native Hawaiians, we're actually trying to look at a different lens. We want to look at what are our positive strengths or attributes. And really looking at it from what's a cultural foundation that we can help to build and uplift from rather than data and measures that can tend to bring us and weigh us down. OK, and central to this concept of resilience is this idea of mana, which has a very long, long history in Hawaiian culture. Let's start there. What's the history of mana? So it exists throughout the, it's not just in Hawaiian culture. Right, throughout Polynesia. And so we do talk about that within the book, especially in the first chapter, but then also with the focus groups and talking to leaders in the community. So we're not just looking only through Hawaiian lens. We do actually open up the conversation and the discussion to include ways of knowing throughout Polynesia, throughout Oceania. Many of our traditions are so closely connected and they have lots of points of comparison. And so we do bring that out within the research and the writing itself. When you use a term like ways of knowing, what do you mean by that? So for us, it's multifaceted. It's multi-layered, right? So one of the first areas that you'll see in the book is a part of our ways of knowing is within our maolelo, within our own stories, with our own legends, within our own proverbial sayings that have been passed down orally from generation to generation. We also looked at the Hawaiian language newspapers as a corpus and looked at where mana is discussed, specifically within those texts. But then we're also looking at ways of knowing through other Hawaiian scholars and authors, right? So Dr. Osorio and Lily Kala and many intellectual leaders that we have within our community today. And where do you find mana? Well, I think what you'll understand. There are many categories of mana. It's just that run through the principal categories of mana, because they're described in some detail. Yes. So we touch on some pretty big themes that came through the research. It's mana is within leadership, right? It's within power of those of us that exalt that role and that position within our community. Is it what we think of in the West as charisma? I think it's probably more layered than that. And I think there's great stories from our Ali'i, from our chiefs. And our chief says that actually explicitly kind of display mana, right? Within ceremony, within rules and regulations that we've set forth. And the way in which they managed cultural and natural resources for generations upon generations. All of that to us is mana. And mana is inherited or is it acquired or both? Yeah, so by the time you read the full book, you hopefully learn that it's actually both. So it is inherited, so it's part of our genealogy of who we are. But it's also acquired through acts of service, through education, through training, through mentoring. And that's part of the different touch points that we try to land on throughout the book. And how is it recognized? So we start first with ways of recognition through maybe a teacher, so an elder. So through some expert within that field or discipline, right? So just as I have trained in my field or the other authors have trained in their fields, so too have we in our traditional cultural practices as well. And so we bring those examples forth to, whether it's fishing or farming or carving or lomi lomi, all of these have these expert positions and unique qualities and traits that they bring forth as mana that is passed on from generation to generation. Are there degrees of mana? Yeah, so I think what we try to explain is that it's a spectrum, right? It can be positive, it can be negative, but it can also be maintained and it can be balanced, right? So for preservation. And so there's kind of always this ebb and flow of gaining and acquiring over time. But also maybe when we're acting negatively or we're not doing the right protocols and procedures that actually cause us to lose our mana. So just to take that a bit further, mana, negative mana, how is that experienced? Or is that like your subject of malevolence? Right, absolutely. So it could be the way in which you treat say the land or the environment around you. That degradation, right, is then your act to the aina, to the land, is then actually brought back to you as the person that actually caused that disruption, right? So that would be an example of perhaps the negative. Is mana something that's observed and measured? Is it something that's only felt by those who feel it? Or is it recognized in some public way? I think it's actually all of those things. So there's definitely examples of mana that's publicly recognized, right? So you have different hoike or uniki ceremonies, right? These graduations or these promotions where mana in itself is displayed, that you've reached this level, you've acquired this set of skills and we are now naming you as a master level of this. But it's also so intrinsic and it can be so personal to individuals within a certain community or within a certain family of the way that they experience and they feel that together might be also hard to put into words or it might be hard to describe. But there's a feeling there and they know that's mana. And is part of the mission of the book to not only define it but also to generate it? Yes. I mean, how do you see that working? Right, so we actually start the book with a few questions. Not only what is mana, but we really try to explore this idea of then how do we cultivate it, especially for the positive. Where are those areas that we can start to support and elevate over time that will make mana continue to increase, right? Where we can build capacity and give credence to those leaders that are doing that within our communities all around the payaina. Give me some examples of how you try and cultivate mana. Sure. So one of the things that we really try to look at and explore is there's some really great community-based organizations, some really great nonprofits that they're directly in the community. They're providing direct service to children, youth, adolescents, to our elders and our kupuna, the whole spectrum, right? And what they're doing is really leading that movement. And we're trying to help articulate this concept and this dynamic kind of idea around all of what does that mean collectively if you add it all together. What does this continued elevation and promotion mean to us through Hawaiian lands using Hawaiian terms? And so how did you set about this great project defining mana and cultivating it? Well, I think I have to totally give respect and honor to our CEO, our pohana at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Dr. Kamana O'Pono Crab. And this was really his vision for several years. He describes in the book examples of mana within his own life, within his family, mentoring with his uncle, with expert leaders in the community like Dr. K. Kunible's still, that helped him to cultivate his mana as a contemporary native Hawaiian leader right now. And so that kind of comes forth from a personal perspective of almost in reflection, I would say. But it's also a part of the training that we've received to look at those opportunities and examples within every single one of our own lives as strengths, as mana, that we're experiencing in real time too. Outside of the book at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, where you do this work, is mana something that is cultivated very deliberately as a value? Yes, I would say we've tried to really strive and make efforts so that our staff, the leadership within the organization, understands that this is a role and responsibility for them as well. How we serve native Hawaiians at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs is a part of our mission. And so we take that really seriously and we want to know what's the best way that we can do that to meet the community needs kind of along the way. And so we're absolutely helping to build that from within first before we even start to look outside of our own organization. Okay, great. Well, we'll come take a small break and we'll come back to that. Okay. This is Think Tech Hawai'i, raising public awareness. He is my mainland here on Think Tech Hawai'i Fridays at 3 p.m. Hawaiian Standard Time. We explore environmental issues, political issues, keeping it local any way we can. Aloha. Here I am back with Ke'a Aloha Vox discussing this new book that comes out of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs called Mana Lakui Kanaka. Actually, it has a longer subtitle. Tell us about the longer subtitle because it's part of the ambition of the book. Yeah, so one thing that you'll see throughout the book is there's all different levels of meaning and there's different ways of knowing that we've tried to articulate. So from the very beginning, when you look at the cover art, right, so a great native Hawaiian artist, Solomon Inos, actually, he created this originally for us. So it starts just right there. And then the dedication of the book, the Ola Lono'el, and then you start to see several different renderings of Mana from an artistic creative point of view are part of the chapter sections. And so we didn't just want it to be one way of knowing, right? So just narrative-based. We actually wanted the book in and of itself to physically represent Mana too and that the book as a tangible object has Mana and it has this essence that we hope comes across every time you turn the page. Yes. All right, I can attest to that. No. So it was a big project and involved a lot of people. A lot of people. Were you one of the principal leaders of it? I think you were, right? Yeah, yeah. Tell us a bit about how that was put together. Yeah, thanks. So in just as much as the book is a tangible representation of Mana too, I think the last count I have is about 157 individuals worked on this. And we worked with other organizations to partner as well, including the artists, right? Including the participants that you'll read their voices within the focus groups. The other research that we bring forth and the authors that we cite, all of that to us is collective, right? It's a collaboration. We really feel like when we come together and we look at these issues or we look at these potential possibilities together, it's much stronger than any one of us trying to do this work alone. So we feel like that 157, those voices, the energy, the work that was put forward, we hope that that's represented here too. We're hoping to build a movement of who comes together within the community for the next, not just this generation or the next 100 years. The movement being with what we should. I think to really grow positive health and well-being for who we are. That's part of the resilience idea. Yeah, it goes back to what we were talking about before. I was especially fascinated by an essay planted in there on the newspaper project, New Paper, and the evolution of the concept of Mana in the newspapers. Can you describe some of that? Yeah, absolutely. So one of the other authors, Holly Keline Hai-Kohlman, she really took the lead of helping us to textually analyze the Hawaiian language newspapers. And so through the Papakilo database and our ongoing partnership with Pua Kea Nogumaira in Kauai-Sai-Durwa, we've actually helped to digitize and store Hawaiian language newspapers on... Of which there were about 100, but... Well, so we have about, I think, 125,000 pages within the corpus. And so what Keline Hai did within our team is really help us to systematically and methodically analyze Mana using the text within the newspapers. And so what you'll see is a case study using Mo'olelo, where we've kind of really gone through that example. And we don't just show the content of what comes out of this story, but we're also trying to show the process, right? So this, we hope, helps to inspire other Hawaiian students or learners that they can apply these methods and these processes within their own research, within their own programs. Would you say that the concept has evolved over time of the concept of Mana or that it's actually a constant that's rediscovered in different ways? I think part of what you'll see is, as much as we look to the past, to the Kavama Muon and what we're talking about maybe within the contemporary lens, is that I kind of look at it like a cylinder, where sometimes we might be going into a more narrow part of the spiral and sometimes we might be going to the broader kind of mouth. But at some point, we're actually touching on the same spot, that same marker, that same landing point, right? Within the same concept that kind of feels and looks the same. And how are you going to broadcast this mission to Hawaiian community? So one of the things that we talked about is the team and we had a great set of advisory board members that helped to really guide us along the way. So the book is free to view and download anytime, anywhere, and that's on our website. And so we're hoping those community-based programs, students within university, teachers and professors within schools, we hope people access it and that they start to utilize it in their own projects or programs or their own groups and have these discussions and really talk about it, right? Well, as you know, I run the Hawaii Book and Music Festival and we've certainly planned to feature it there with at least one panel. Yeah, we're excited. Where do you see it hitting home most successfully? Where do you see the reactions from the community coming from? I think I'm most excited about that. So we do want to go across Hawaii into communities and have these discussions with participants from the project, you know, host community meetings where we can start to have these conversations in maybe a more intimate and detailed setting where we can start to really massage like, what does this mean maybe in Hilo or in Hana or in Waimea and Kauai, right? It might look and feel very different from one community to the other. So I think we're really excited for that next step in 2018. Have you found that kind of geographic distribution of perception in the research that went into the book? So what you'll see is I think the major themes themselves, right? So leadership, the environment, families, communities, those are constant themes that you'll see kind of anywhere. But certain behaviors and traits and qualities of Mana are absolutely differing from one island to the next. Oh, give me an example. So we have, and I think we tried to be pretty diverse in the distribution. So even with the focus group participants, we have participants from all across different communities. And so they bring different ways of knowing, right? So for example, some of the traditional Hawaiian medicine practitioners, certain plants are not found in every area, right? It's the same for our Hula Halao and practitioners. The adornment that they wear for their protocols and ceremonies aren't necessarily found in certain areas than others. And so that's a different representation of Mana right there in and of itself. No. Did Hula take a major part in the discussion of Mana? It did, yes. I think especially because we've seen such revitalization and resurgence of Hula over the past few decades that Hula as a practice is quite well known to a broad audience from all around the world. But it still has a very sacred and spiritual foundation and meaning to why do we chant these chants and why do we dance these dances and who are we honoring when we speak of these place names or when we are adorn ourselves with those flowers? I think that's all a part of what you'll see in some of the examples. And there are some really great tangible stories that I think people will definitely latch on to. And do you think people will return to the same sensibility that Hula started with? In other words, I can understand when a Hala chance of certain mele, that's very traditional. And I can imagine what it was like when that mele was originated. But we live in a very different time now. So there's a certain archival museum quality to what they're doing. But I imagine part of your hope is to make Hula alive today in a way, not just analogous, but at least as powerful as it was originally. Yeah, so, and I think that's what will come out more in the panel at the festival is so Dr. Lisa Watkins-Victorino and Mejana Okola Hind are both Kumula who've actually graduated from two different Halao. And at their expert level, I think that's probably where I would defer to them. But I do think that's a part of the conversations and the themes that we had back within our team is as we revitalize and re-establish these practices, what are some of those intentional ways and purposeful ways that we also want to do that for the community kind of at large too? Well, I certainly hope that the Hawaii Book and Music Festival that will have a tiny role in this resurgence. And thank you very much. Oh, mahalo to you.