He Pou He'e I Ka Wawā: Slipping Into the Tumult of Life and Politics a Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Division Of
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HE POU HEʻE I KA WAWĀ: SLIPPING INTO THE TUMULT OF LIFE AND POLITICS A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAIʻI AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN POLITICAL SCIENCE DECEMBER 2016 By Luʻukia Archer Dissertation Committee: Noenoe Silva, Chairperson Jonathan Goldberg-Hiller Noelani Goodyear-Kaʻōpua Leilani Basham Noelani Arista Niklaus Schweizer Copyright © 2016 Luukia Archer All rights reserved i This dissertation is dedicated to my kūpuna, Frank and Leilani Thompson, both of whom laid the groundwork for the path I follow in this life. And to my three kaikamahine, Ēweleiʻula, ʻOakaʻōlali and Noelohuliau, who expand our moʻokūʻauhau everyday through their words, thoughts and actions. E hoʻoulu i ka lāhui Hawaiʻi! ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the tireless support and encouragement of a number of individuals. I would first like to mahalo my dissertation committee. Each member of the committee has contributed significantly to the development of my thoughts on many of the topics addressed in this dissertation and I am eternally grateful for all of the support they have offered over many years. I would especially like to thank my chair Noenoe Silva who has advocated for my success since I was an undergraduate student and expended incalculable energy over the last six months to see me through this final step in my academic journey. Her guidance, mentorship, and wisdom have been a constant source of inspiration and I hope that my contribution is a positive reflection of all that she has provided for the lāhui and me. I would also like to express my mahalo for kumu Leilani Basham who has fostered my intellectual and cultural growth for more than a decade. Mahalo ā nui for your critical insights and review of my work, answering my late night calls, responding to my random text messages, and coddling my vulnerable sense of self when it was most needed. Nui ke aloha iā ʻoe. I am also extremely grateful to Jon Goldberg-Hiller for his instantaneous email responses, for taking the time out of his busy writing schedule to read and critique my chapters, and for pushing and challenging my thinking in political theory for many years and particularly in the last six months. I also want to mahalo my amazing friends Mary-Lindsey Correa and Genai Keliʻikuli who have kept me going and struggled along with me during the entirety of my doctoral studies. Mahalo to you both for answering my crazy questions about God, letting me bounce ideas off you and dealing with my near constant freak-outs over the iii last few months. You have both been an immeasurable support system and I am lucky to have such intelligent, thoughtful, and caring friends. Thank you to my 84 and Sunny team, Brandi Martin and Naiʻa Lewis, for providing technological and creative support. You both made the defense a much less stressful process and I am truly grateful for your assistance and your incredible brains. I am indebted to my mother, Iris Thompson, for her love and unwavering support of my endeavors. Mahalo to you and Kevin for providing a loving, nurturing, and stimulating home for my kids during the summers so that I could finally finish this dissertation. Thanks as well to my father, Kelly Archer, for always checking in on me and for providing gifts of food so I didn’t have to cook! I am profoundly grateful to my husband, Sterling Kini Wong, for sacrificing his time, his work, and his sanity so that I could finish this dissertation. Mahalo for taking on the bulk of the parental duties over the last few months and for doing so in such a loving and supportive manner (as a husband should). Most of all though I am grateful for your ability to challenge status quo ideas, question embedded views and perspectives, dispute illogical claims and provoke my own thinking on the topics that greatly impact our lāhui. And lastly, to my three beloved daughters who sacrificed bedtime stories, help with homework and afternoon surf sessions so that I could be Doctor Mom. I am inspired everyday by the little humans you are becoming. iv ABSTRACT This dissertation examines moʻokūʻauhau (genealogy) as a framework that promotes distinct ways of thinking about the world and structures our engagement in it. Throughout the dissertation, I engage sex, procreation, and birth, concepts inherent to moʻokūʻauhau, and contend that these themes result in the expression of practices wherein life is both the object and core of politics making it essential for aliʻi (chiefs) to manage in order to support a thriving population. Mōʻī (king) David Laʻamea Kalākaua’s reign provides rich investigative terrain for this analysis and the dissertation considers the 1874 election period, the profound impact of the cosmogonic genealogy Kumulipo to his leadership, and his motto Hoʻoulu Lāhui (increase the nation) as useful examples in constructing moʻokūʻauhau as a framework wherein ʻōiwi (native) theoretical and methodological positions become accessible. These topics are contextualized within a nineteenth century Hawaiian Kingdom dealing with the ravages of disease and religious intervention that influenced the political actions and motivations of the time. The political, social, and cultural practices of the past that this dissertation engages were maintained and reshaped throughout the nineteenth century in an extremely transformative period—a period of encounter and collision. New ideologies and methods incorporated with traditional practices acted as strategic responses to these changes and led to syncretic expressions of ʻōiwi intellectual traditions like moʻokūʻauhau. Yet, the prominence of moʻokūʻauhau to the function of ʻōiwi society within this shifting era was maintained if reconfigured, and given new meaning and modes of expression. In that vein, this dissertation brings moʻokūʻauhau into conversation with biopolitics and v biopower in an effort to underline life as the core and object of ʻōiwi politics intent on producing a thriving ʻōiwi population. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...............................................................................................iii ABSTRACT........................................................................................................................ v Chapter 1............................................................................................................................. 1 ʻŌlelo Hoʻākāka.................................................................................................................. 1 Moʻokūʻauhau—Relationship Making and Organization............................................................9 Biopower/Biopolitics—Life and Death, Power and Politics......................................................13 Kalākaua—Building Political Power through the Kumulipo and Beyond.................................23 Chapter 2........................................................................................................................... 34 Moʻokūʻauhau: Life and Power in Overlapping Conceptual Landscapes........................ 34 Changing Traditions...................................................................................................................42 Pō and Ao In Transformation (and Collision)............................................................................61 Ola Hou and Eternal Life ...........................................................................................................78 Chapter 3........................................................................................................................... 92 Hoʻoulu Lāhui: Sex, Procreation and Production............................................................. 92 Hoʻoulu Lāhui, Sex and Disease ................................................................................................98 Hoʻoulu Lāhui and Production.................................................................................................104 Hoʻoulu Lāhui and Ahahui Hooulu a Hoola ............................................................................108 Conclusion................................................................................................................................113 Chapter 4......................................................................................................................... 116 Hoʻoulu Lāhui: Perpetuating ʻŌiwi Bodies of Knowledge ............................................ 116 Ka Papa Kūʻauhau o Nā Aliʻi...................................................................................................120 Adolf Bastian and the International Context............................................................................144 Increasing the Nation................................................................................................................154 Conclusion................................................................................................................................157 Chapter 5......................................................................................................................... 160 Ka Panina Manaʻo........................................................................................................... 160 The Future in the Past: Projects and Possibilities.....................................................................162 Ka Hopena................................................................................................................................165