AN ORAL HISTORY OF THREE GENERATIONS OF KAPA PRACTITIONERS 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 EDUCATION IN PROFESSIONAL EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE AUGUST 2017 By Marlene A. Zeug Dissertation Committee: Eōmailani Kukahiko, Chairperson Makalapua Alencastre Walter Kahumoku, III Warren Nishimoto Keywords: kapa, Hawaiʻi, narrative inquiry, storytelling, oral history COPYRIGHT © 2017 MARLENE A. ZEUG ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii mahalo piha When the final words of this text emerged, I was spent. It was 7:00 p.m. and the evening was settling in outside. I leaned back in my chair, staring, in the growing darkness, at my computer screen. The gratitude and responsibility that mark the ways I see this world come from knowing the shoulders I stand on are broad, and deep, and wide. At some point, the journey of this dissertation became more than a process to a degree, even more than the stories of my kumu kapa. Somewhere along the way, this journey became about the stories of all the kumu who have intersected and intertwined with my own. There have been countless other times up until now, where I have sat at tables across kumu, and listened to their stories as they shared of themselves. Two words cannot seem to convey the gratitude that finds its way from someplace deep. But I will nonetheless try. To the professors, my advisory committee, the mentors, even my cohort-mates in the EdD program, and my dear friends and colleagues near and far, who in some way sat patiently and let me rage, and cry, and laugh, and wonder, who gave hugs, a shoulder, an ear, even a look, so I could finally find my way through this project, mahalo piha. To the two coaches who taught me basketball and became my life mentors, who showed me what it means to be a teacher of life, who stoked my passion and fed my thirst, who allowed me to be me, and most of all, just stayed in my life to see me get to here, mahalo piha. To my parents, and my brother, who fed me with laughter and food and conversation, who encouraged me to keep going and allowed the demands of this program to take priority, who read my drafts without complaint, who followed me to Washington DC, and England, and iii Scotland, and Boston, and back, just so I could touch and see kapa, and who remind me everyday of the kind of person I want to be, mahalo piha. To my nieces and great-grandnephew, to the young people I am so lucky to coach and teach, who keep me humble, who teach me all the time to see the world in new and different ways, and who remind me everyday why I do what I do, mahalo piha. To my kumu kapa, and the kumu they introduced me to, who sat with me at their tables, who gave me their time and their manaʻo and their stories to hold, who saw my curiosity and nurtured it, who watched me grow, who have become so important in my life, mahalo piha. This dissertation is a celebration of a story of stories, and so it is a celebration of each of you and the gifts you have so freely and generously given me. For all those times we sat across from each other, for all the ways you continue to teach, mahalo, mahalo, mahalo. iv abstract The first story about kapa I ever learned as a haumāna is two words: “just beat.” These words were offered to me from my kumu kapa Aunty Verna Takashima, who heard them from her kumu kapa, Kaʻiulani de Silva. Over time, these words became a metaphor, a pedagogy, a language. Until they became stories built upon stories, the threads of the tapestry that both carry the ʻike of a practice and weave us together. Even now, five years later, as my practitioner lens embraces researcher and educator lenses, the ideas and stories in this text are summed in these two words. So, this dissertation is a story of these stories. This inquiry does not ask what kapa is, but how it is experienced through story. Using the ʻohe kāpala design of the pewa as a visual metaphor, the moʻolelo of three generations of kapa practitioners are genealogically presented in the “positive spaces”: Kaʻiulani de Silva (part I), Aunty Verna Takashima (part II), and me (part III). These moʻolelo are contextually situated within practitioner, researcher, and educator “layers” that also represent the multiple lenses I wear. Negotiating my relational responsibilities among these shifting contexts and narratives fill the “negative spaces” of this text. Together, these positive and negative spaces—the moʻolelo and underlying narrative of my positionality—are the stories that comprise this dissertation. Qualitative research is increasingly reshaped by inquiry that prioritizes narrative and relational ethics in exploring the phenomena of human experience (Clandinin & Caine, 2008), and this dissertation reflects this methodological commitment. Creating a space for these moʻolelo creates a space to peer closely beneath the layers where philosophical spaces lie: about shaping identity, about our understandings of educational practice, about how we come to know. And in so doing, presents an opportunity for the reader to engage with these stories, to reflect, and discover the lessons that lie in the folds of moʻolelo built from those two words, “just beat,” the way I did. v table of contents mahalo piha .......................................................................................................... iii abstract .................................................................................................................. v list of figures ......................................................................................................... ix to the eyes that read ............................................................................................. xii story (re)teller’s note .......................................................................................... xxi organization .................................................................................................... xxi the five poems ................................................................................................ xxiii footnotes ........................................................................................................ xxiv formatting and style ........................................................................................ xxv introduction ........................................................................................................... 2 the pewa ............................................................................................................. 2 the practitioner layer: moʻolelo and the historical narrative of kapa ................... 6 the dominant narrative of kapa ............................................................................................ 6 the counterstory of contemporary kapa practitioners ........................................................ 11 the researcher layer: moʻolelo, oral storytelling and narrative inquiry ............. 12 qualitative research and narrative inquiry ......................................................................... 14 the thorny tension ............................................................................................................... 18 negotiating moʻolelo as exchange ....................................................................................... 19 navigating the representation of moʻolelo ......................................................................... 27 the educator layer: moʻolelo and approaches to teaching and learning ............. 31 he lālā wau no kuʻu kumu ................................................................................................... 35 i ka nānā no a ʻike ............................................................................................................... 36 ma ka hana ka ʻike ............................................................................................................... 37 lawe i ka maʻalea a kūʻonoʻono ........................................................................................... 38 aʻo aku, aʻo mai ................................................................................................................... 39 part I the kumu of my kumu is my kumu .............................................................. 42 introduction ......................................................................................................... 44 moʻolelo as exchange ........................................................................................ 48 moʻolelo as representation ................................................................................ 50 the first day .......................................................................................................... 52 where my name comes from ............................................................................. 52 hula .................................................................................................................. 54 e hana mua a paʻa ke kahua ............................................................................... 60 the chant guides the hula .................................................................................. 63 what kapa teaches ............................................................................................. 67 camping, digging, hiking, discovering ............................................................... 72 ʻohana, stuffed peacocks, and the tsunami .......................................................