Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 25, Number 6, 1 May 2008 — Agents of change [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Agents of change

UH fellow finds new way of looking at old idea By Lisa Asatū Public lnfurmatiun Specialist Prevailing scholarship on the Hawaiian Kingdom in the years leading up to the 1893 overthrow suggests that it was a eolonial institution. But new research by University of Hawai'i doctoral candidate Kamana

Beamer challenges that idea. After a year of full-time work on his dissertation, including a trip to London to sift through the national archives and present his research at Royal Holloway, University of London, Beamer's findings led him to conclude that Hawai'i's ali'i were not agents of foreigners, but rather agents of change. "Sometimes you get the impression that there's a foreigner whispering in their ear, and they were just dictating what that particular foreigner wanted them to do, but

they weren't doing that," Beamer said. "They were taking existing ways of governance, land management, existing tradition and modernizing them in the kingdom through codification of laws (and) those types of things for the betterment of the eountry and the people as a whole." "I'm calling it 'selective adaptation,' " added Beamer, whose $45,000 'Ōiwi Ake Akamai fellowship, a pilot program for Native Hawaiian research funded by UHMānoa, Kamehameha Schools and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, allowed him to concentrate fulltime on his studies and complete

his dissertation in one year. He will defend his dissertation this month and plans to graduate in December. Six other students also received the fellowships: Stephanie Dunbar, Sydney Iaukea, Malia Kaaihue, Peter Moore, David Sai and Stephen Vogeler. Their research ranges from native plant restoration to Hawaiian language education Beamer said that by modernizing traditions through "selective adaptation," ali'i were trying to create "a government that would be recognized by the powers of the world." He pointed to examples See SCH0LARon page 08

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of an 1838 map by S.P. Kalama that shows traditional moku and ahupua'a divisions, royal trips abroad to France and Britain, and Hawaiian-language newspapers publishing "traditional mo 'olelo and expressing polhieal views all in our own language." Beamer said previous scholars, including Haunani Trask, Lilikalā Kame'eleihiwa, lon Osorio and Noenoe Silva examined history through the lens of eolonialism, although to lesser degrees through the years. Beamer tested that notion afterresearching maps and land records for his master's thesis, whieh tried to use eolonial theory to explain how the Hawaiian Kingdom was mapped. "I realized that it wasn't making sense," he said. "So my dissertation is sort of a reinterpretation of how we understand the kingdom." One of those scholars, Osorio, encouraged him to re-analyze existing work. "That was very mueh encouraged by kumu lon Osorio," Beamer said. Beamer has digitized more than 18,000 pages of archival material from the kingdom era, including ali'i journals and letters. During his

trip to London, he retraced the steps of Lot and Liholiho, found an 1894 petition in the archives from Queen Lili'uokalani to the British government asking them to deny recognition to the provisional govermnent, and found evidence that Hawaiians active with the annexation petition "went and met with

British officials and delivered to them copies of niemorials against annexation." "There's vast amounts of materials that needs to be eollected from the United Kingdom archives and brought back so we ean better understand what was happening in this time," he said, adding that they offer a valuable perspective of events that is neither Hawaiian nor American. Beamer, the 30-year-old son of musician Kapono Beamer and grandson of the late educator Winona Beamer, said he hopes his work sparks further research, whieh could have poliīieal implications in sovereignty and regaining ceded lands. What he learned has significance for all Hawaiians, he said. "It speaks of the brilliance of our people and of our leaders and the significance of their actions in trying to create a better system for their people. And like them, in today's times we're facing those same issues - we're trying to figure out, 'How do we continue to move forward in this modern world while maintaining our identities as Hawaiians?' And I think that that's empowering to see our ali'i, our traditional leaders, were dealing with the same issues. Maybe we ean learn from some of their experiences." □

Kamana Beamer at the national archives in London. - Photo: Courtesy of Kamana Beamer