Inquiry have been useful for my own practice as just

inquiry have been useful for my own practice as just one scholar among a grow-
ing wave of Hawaiian academic practitioners. This chapter should also be seen
as an invitation for new generations of practitioners to consider and extend what
it means to “do” Hawaiian studies. 6 What other ‘aho exist that we may take up
and reproduce for future generations? New waves of Hawaiian studies scholar-
ship will address this question over time and in relation to new contexts.
I enter and participate in the field of Hawaiian studies as someone who ex-
amines, engages in, and writes about contemporary Hawaiian politics. My re-
Methodological Ropes for Research and Resurgence. This figure represents four ‘aho that
form the methodological rope of Hawaiian studies research. These concepts—l ā hui (col-
lective identity and self-definition), ea (sovereignty and leadership), kuleana (positionality
and obligations), and pono (harmonious relationships, justice, and healing)—are central com-
mitments and lines of inquiry in contemporary Hawaiian studies research. Image by Lianne
Charlie.

search, writing, and teaching generally focus on current relations of power. Not
a day goes by when I do not think about how our k ū puna ‘ Ō iwi of both the
remote and recent past remain relevant to issues of land, identity, education,
sustainability, and governance today and into our futures. In this reflective
chapter, my exploration of Hawaiian studies methodologies is guided by my
t ū t ū kualua, my maternal great-great-grandmother, Ana Ka‘auwai. She was not
a writer or a scholar, but her ‘ano and her stories represent what I aspire to be
and how I hope to inhabit my role as a Kanaka academic. Thus I begin with her
story and weave reflections of her throughout this chapter. After all, Hawaiian
studies research enabled me to reconnect with her. In many ways Hawaiian
studies research is deeply personal and can be healing on individual, familial,
and l ā hui levels. It is a rope that allows us to pull toward one another against
powerful forces that attempt to fragment and obliterate us as a L ā hui Kanaka
‘ Ō iwi.
E ana i ka ‘auwai: Look to the Routes of Ancestral Knowledge
Ana Ka‘auwai was born and raised in Kohala. She passed into the ao ‘aumakua
long before I was born. Growing up, I did not know anything about her—not
even her name. My grandfather had passed into the ao ‘aumakua very young,
at age thirty-one, and his mother died early as well, at only forty-one. Like the
many ways our people have been cut off from the waiwai of our ancestors by
the deaths that imperialism demands, my branch of the family became discon-
nected from stories of my great-great-grandmother, T ū t ū Ana.
Ana was still alive in the memories of some of my elder relatives, but it was
not until I was a Hawaiian studies major in college and doing genealogy
research that I learned about her. The research required two types of methods:
interviewing k ū puna and searching for genealogy documents in various
government- and church-maintained archives. Each of these two paths produced