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After a year and a half of work with this project from preparation to background research, participant observation, reflections on successes and mistakes, and writing of the thesis the itself, what can we now say about some of the basic potentials and consequences of GIS and its specific relevance to the Nation of Hawai`i in particular? At this paper's conclusion, we invoke some important, additional voices, and reflect on a few of the deeper issues underlying this subject.
We originally undertook this research because we perceived a world exhibiting many signs of distress and imbalance, and thus we were actively looking for initiatives which gave signs of causing significant change, assisting in fundamental realignments and integration of humans' relationship with each other and with "nature." When we learned of Geographic Information Systems technology and the claims that were being made for its potential to help humans track and comprehend ever-expanding volumes of data about our world, we were immediately fascinated and began to learn more. Two general tendencies of GIS use we have explored can be summarized as follows: 1.) GIS can be implemented in a top-down manner and thus utilized to manage and analyze information about people and place in controlling and manipulative ways that serves elites, and 2.) GIS may also be utilized in a more open process, where people are empowered through access to information and contribution to the information gathering process, to participate in comprehensive sustainable planning for their home region. In the following few pages, we will discuss some of the forces that underlie these two very different uses of GIS, in order to gain some final insights from this material. We also include specific recommendations for the Nation of Hawai`i based on the analysis of our data.
We begin by invoking a philosopher-poet who has affected us deeply, both through our classes with him at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and through his books. William Irwin Thompson (1987) has suggested in Pacific Shift that the main challenges Western society faces today are based on the accumulated denial and repression of environmental problems over five millennia of Western culture, from the advent of city-states. As such they are not at first "environmental" problems, but are instead culturally based.
When we look back over the pattern of development from Riverine to Mediterranean to Atlantic to Pacific-Aerospace [Thompson's terms for different phases of Western civilization over 5,500 years], we can see that Western civilization is correct in its identification with the urban revolution of the fourth millennium B.C., for their story is our story, and not one of the environmental problems of civilization has been "solved" since 3500 B.C. The problems were simply deferred by moving into a new cultural ecology. But now we have come full circle, and all the problems are accumulating in what can only be described as the climax of civilization itself. (Thompson, 1987: 85)
Thompson suggests that humans in the "Western" trajectory (and often those who happen to be caught in its path) have in the last 5,500 years organized themselves into cultures which have time and time again spoiled or exhausted their resource base. Thompson implies that this is not an accident, but rather is based on one hallmark of the "Western trajectory;" the attempt to control and organize "nature," and then to ignore or make invisible the resulting environmental problems. Thompson insists that pollution is not just something to be feared, solved, or merely cleaned up, but rather feedback to be listened to: as communication from ourselves disguised in the form of soil loss, acid rain, epidemics, desertification, etc. Millennia of technological fixes have helped us to avoid dealing with the negative consequences of our actions, he suggests, and thus, as a society we may be simultaneously facing daunting challenges and unprecedented opportunities.
Pollution, then, like a neurotic symptom, is a form of communication. To ignore the symptom, to thrust it to the side of awareness and push it back into the collective unconscious, is to perform the same action that created the pollution, the dissonance, the neurotic symptom, in the first place. The end result of ignoring the communication is to stimulate it to the point that the dissonance becomes so loud that it drowns out all other signals. Ultimately, the ignored and unconscious precipitates itself as the ultimate shadow of civilization, annihilation. This is another way of expressing what I have noted before: If you do not create your destiny, you will have your fate inflicted upon you. The creation of destiny, then, depends on maintaining a more permeable membrane between noise and information, unconscious and conscious, nature and culture.(Modern) Civilization, however, is not surrounded by a light, permeable membrane, but a wall ... The salinization of the soil was not seen or heard. A local technology, defined by the city's limits, created a problem area larger than its political area of control. Any cultural attempt to control an area rationally only seems to generate a shadow ... the fascinating aspect of the cultural patterning of urban civilization is that the problem or crisis, the dissonance, can itself be read as the signal of emergence of the next level of historical order.
Like a shadow that does not permit us to jump over it, but moves with us to maintain its proper distance, pollution is nature's answer to culture. When we have learned to recycle pollution into potent information, we will have passed over completely into the new cultural ecology. (Ibid: 82) emphasis added)
If Thompson is right and the whole modern ecological malaise emerges from the same cause - the consistent cultural repression, denial, and deferment of environmental pollution-communication, the question we bring to this discussion is: will we continue to use technology to try and control "nature" and insulate ourselves from the consequences, or will we attempt to use technology to help us to listen to pollution: and live and act in new ways that contribute to the solution of problems? Specifically, how can GIS assist in this process?
Wolfgang Sachs (1992) rises to the level of Thompson's challenge and explores one potential extreme in a discussion of technology's influence on global ecology.
Technologically, as often in the history of science, it was a new generation of instruments and equipment which created the possibility of collecting and processing data on a global scale. With satellites, sensors and computers, the technology available in the 1990's permits the biosphere to be surveyed and modeled.Satellite pictures scanning the globe's vegetative cover, computer graphs running interactive curves through time, threshold levels held up as worldwide norms are the language of global ecology. It constructs a reality that contains mountains of data, but no people. The data do not explain why Tuaregs are driven to exhaust their water-holes, or what makes Germans so obsessed with high speed on freeways; they do not point out who owns the timber shipped from the Amazon or which industry flourishes because of a polluted Mediterranean sea; and they are mute about the significance of forest trees for Indian tribes or what water means in an Arab country. In short, they provide a knowledge which is faceless and placeless; an abstraction that carries a considerable cost: it consigns the realities of diagrams, but no actors; it gives calculations, but no notions of morality; it seeks stability, but disregards beauty. Indeed, the global vantage point requires ironing out all the differences and disregarding all circumstances; rarely has the gulf between observers and the observed been greater than between satellite-based forestry and the Sueigaro in the Brazilian jungle. It is inevitable that the claims of global management are in conflict with the aspirations for cultural rights, democracy and self determination. Indeed, it is easy for an ecocracy which acts in the name of `one earth' to become a threat to local communities and their lifestyles. After all, has there ever, in the history of colonialism, been a more powerful motive for streamlining the world than the call to save the planet? (Sachs, 1992: 18-19 emphasis added)
Sachs raises an essential point here which, for us, makes it clear that the primary question is not only whether technology can be used to help us listen to the environmental communication resulting from our actions, but also, what will we use technology to help us listen to? Sachs suggests in a slightly different way than Thompson, that environmental problems have their roots in culture, and that "listening" to satellite images may not give much insight into these roots. Such global analysis points to a vast hubris of Western society and technology, says Sachs, and leads to nothing less than attempts at total planetary ecological management and engineering. Sachs implies that in this case, technology is being used not to 'recycle pollution into potent information,' (thus assisting in the revitalization of our society), but rather it is being used in an attempt to control and further manage the effects of our culture's history of environmental control. Sachs suggests that the use of powerful modern remote sensing technologies, if employed and driven by an "ecocracy" charging itself with the management of the planet, can be very problematic, invoking the age-old tendency of Western society to control nature while distancing itself from the associated feedback/communication. Satellite-based forestry may give the illusion of comprehensiveness and power, but is it really possible to listen to the forest from miles above the Earth?
Aberley criticizes a science that deigns to control nature through 'disembodied facts, and 'implies that the listening that is occurring is science listening to and carrying out its own agenda. He offers a different approach to listening, which, in line with Thompson, suggests the creation of a more permeable membrane between nature and culture. Aberley writes in Boundaries of Home: Mapping for Local Empowerment that,
The mistake of science is that its goal is to describe nature as a complex machine, and to replace the vagaries of nature's chaos with management. Bioregional mapping is about something else: processes and relationships rather than disembodied facts. (Aberley 1993: 5)
One of Aberley's implicit points is that not only has science "replaced the vagaries of nature's chaos with management," and replaced "processes and relationships" with "disembodied facts," but that scientific management is done but by a select few! A more permeable membrane needs the involvement of more than just experts and ecocrats - the first illusion to dispel is that other people are the experts, have the knowledge, and should write the maps about your home place.
The notion that only experts can map is the type of disenfranchisement that reinhabitants confront and nullify. If it doesn't matter how well you draw, or that you have the "best" pens, or that you don't have a college degree in cartography, then what does matter? Simply the ability to try, to fill the world again with personal and communal descriptions of time and space. (Ibid: 5)
Aberley's work is filled with guidelines, insights, and practical techniques for empowering grassroots initiatives to "just do it" and become familiar and acquainted with their home place through the process of community mapping; he stresses the importance and power of collecting what you already know about a place. When a community comes together and engages in this process a new, larger and more comprehensive picture of a place can emerge. In addition to the value and power of the data gathering process, Aberley emphasizes the transformative effects of engaging in the subsequent process of mapping.
In addressing the unprecedented environmental and social crises of our age, we must seemingly come to grips with the question of whether to tackle these crises on a global "comprehensive" level, whether to focus on local solutions to global problems, or whether there is a middle ground. Aberley and Sachs describe two approaches which encompass a range of possibilities for "listening" to feedback/communication, involving high-technology and large, global scale, and low-technology and smaller, human scale: two distinct approaches with very different outcomes.
We believe that it is in the space between these positions that we may find the combinations of actions and technology that will allow people to listen and hear the variety of signals necessary to redirect our lives to the degree that pollution becomes potent information: perhaps a multi-regional meta GIS that is based on the linking and coordination of local community mapping knowledge. Satellite images and observation and local knowledge could perhaps inform and inspire each other at different levels of planning and management. We believe in any case that it is important to explore a wide range of options in order to be familiar with the spectrum of possibilities that exist to design a system which could support the development of sustainable culture.
Central to negotiating such a balance may be a dynamic, supportive context of cultural wisdom. Schoenhoff states insightfully that
Focused as we are on information and data, we seem to rarely give wisdom a thought in our high-tech society....In the West, we have often gained knowledge at the expense of wisdom. In traditional societies, wisdom must be achieved and therefore it is often valued over education, wealth or physical strength. The elders are expected to possess wisdom to a greater degree than younger members of the community. Wisdom has to do with playing one's social, interpersonal, and interactional roles successfully. It is seeded in the culture itself and is expressed in qualities that allow one to survive, to form beneficial relationships, to manage conflict, to present one's view persuasively, to consistently make sound judgments, and to advance one's position in the culture - all with exceptional skill. One can have knowledge without experience, but one cannot have wisdom without experience. (Schoenhoff, 1993: 100, 163)
Schoenhoff suggests that developing the atomic bomb was an example of knowledge, and restraining from using it would have been sound wisdom (Ibid: 100). How do we apply wisdom to our society's integration of technology? While ultimately a question that we believe must be answered in the future by the Hawaiian people, the central question of this thesis may comes down to this: how can the Hawaiians bring as much wisdom as possible to their exploration and potential use of GIS?
On a less abstract level, with respect specifically to Hawaiian sovereignty and the Nation of Hawai`i, this research suggests that not only is the control of the land of critical importance, but as we assert in the previous sections, the Kanaka Maoli, the indigenous people of Hawai`i, exist today in a context of displacement not only from the land, but also to information which has been gathered about the land. The displacement of the indigenous people of Hawai`i from the land has resulted in a substantial loss of detailed, intimate personal knowledge of the land and its processes, and has largely been replaced by systems of collected information abstraction, such as written records, maps, surveys, various digital databases, and bureaucratic institutions which coordinate government services, settle disputes over land and other resources, and maintain the collected information about the people and natural resources of Hawai`i. However, in this system, the acquisition by private citizens of specific, current, digitized information about the land from Hawai`i government offices is currently either costly or impossible. It is also important to understand that digitized taxpayer paid-for government information covers only some of the social, economic, hydrologic, geologic, historic, biotic, animal, and human possibilities one might want or need.
Thus the Nation of Hawai`i's exploration of GIS represents its recognition that the original and often discussed "theft" of Hawai`i's land from the Kanaka Maoli of the archipelago has been accompanied by a second theft: this time a theft of the public-paid-for information about the land. In response to these perceived injustices, the Nation has staked its interest and claim both to the land and to the information about the land. The Nation is suggesting that both in its struggle for sovereignty and in its potential for sustainability after sovereignty, in claiming the land and the information about the land, GIS may serve as an essential aid.
What we primarily want to emphasize in this thesis is that while a group may have the best intentions in creating a "next-generation GIS" for social empowerment and sustainability, a historical and global context of mapping and Western technology exists which has been and is currently not only often opposed to these goals, but is antithetical to them. Becoming aware of this history and context may be the first step toward freedom from the subtle values, rules, and power relationships that have existed or still do exist in this tradition and context. However to identify the problematics of the current system is merely the first step; following this, it is important to solidify a positive, forward vision, filled with the attributes and values of a GIS that is appropriate for the people of this Hawaiian land.
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At this early phase of the Nation of Hawai`i's GIS initiative, at which no funding is presently secured or any definite plans finalized, we would like to suggest some immediate actions; to offer a brief summary of how GIS can be used to support the Nation's work toward self-determination and sustainability both while the State claims power and in service to an independent Hawaiian nation; and to offer a series of questions to consider while exploring GIS in general. Before we do so however, we would like to acknowledge the non-native position from which we speak. As much as we try to empathize with the indigenous people of Hawai`i, the Kanaka Maoli, our roots and education are still based in the Western European tradition and therefore we will be unaware of many issues and subtleties of Hawaiian culture. We speak from an awareness of some of our own biases, a brief exposure to the Hawaiian culture and an intense experience of one year's research into the potential uses and implications of GIS. With these consideration in mind, we would like to offer these recommendations.
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The development and evolution of GIS will occur with or without the participation of academia and other related critique. The main question we would like to close with is - what will be the nature of the GIS of the future? What maps will be enabled and produced? And who will use them with what effect? What data sets will be created, combined, and mined - for "sustainable management," and for "surveillance and social control?" As Openshaw (1996) suggests, this is a time of many questions, and many opportunities.
"Can there be a socio-economic GIS?" or "What needs to be done to existing GISs to improve their capabilities in handling data about people?" "Can there be a qualitative version of GIS?" It is not too late to invent a new technology if there are good reasons for doing so. There are major developments underway in soft computing technologies that may be relevant.... (This) is an appropriate time to consider how to specify (and perhaps build) alternative systems rather than just moan endlessly about the problems associated with those that exist. (Openshaw, 1996: *)
From what consortiums and collaborations will "next generation" GIS for social equity, sustainability, and self-determination spring? What will be its social consequences? We don't claim to be able to answer this question at this point. We do agree that it is truly an important time to engage these issues and possibilities, as Openshaw suggests.
GIS a is small part of a much bigger picture that is being driven by a virtually unstoppable process of technological change. An equilibrium state has not yet been reached. The problem is that end user appreciation of what is now possible is lagging far behind what is now feasible, and what is now considered feasible is itself far behind what will soon become possible. (Ibid: *)
We would suggest one more area of specific study - that of an investigation into the use of GIS to support large scale resource management and coordination of government services; and a look into how GIS is or has been used to support small scale, cultural, bioregional integration with an area of land.
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After exploring the academic research to date, we would like to reiterate our excitement at the productive lines of inquiry raised thus far, and also to make a call for this research to be expanded to many other disciplines including anthropology (with its participant observation).
However, some may ask, what does it really matter whether theoretical debates rage this way or that, when GIS has been, and will continue to be applied to practical, real world problems and issues, often distant from the ivory towers of academia? Roger Miller (1995) explores this issue with sensitivity:
Most who work with geographic information systems (GIS), when they consider the situation at all, think of themselves as technical analysts, blessedly removed from the pointless theoretical debates that seem to be modern-day equivalents of the Scholastic controversy over the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. More formally put, the current empirical and positivist basis of GIS has led to a general dismissal of the idea that the theoretical debates rocking the human sciences have any relevance for "practitioners" or "applied geographers." However, such a blanket rejection appears increasingly unwise and untenable, as is reflected in the growing chorus of calls for greater integration of technical and applied aspects of GIS. (Miller, 1995: 47)
In L.A., Adam Carson's impatience with academia and its frequent pursuit of knowledge for knowledge's sake led him to consistently de-emphasize our role as researchers and stress our potential as business associates, (assistants, helpers, partners in development...), which perhaps reflects a common dismissal of the relevance of theoretical debates, as mentioned above. Miller suggests that a central cause of the dismissal of academics is their lack of immediate relevance to product development. As in many industries, GIS applications - the users' needs for GIS - drive development, not idealized discussions.
Central to much of the current discussion is the fact that GIS technology has been developed within an empiricist and positivist tradition, with a primary emphasis on solving technical problems associated with data structures, integrating complex algorithmic modules within single "look-and-feel" user interfaces, and simplifying data input, analysis and output processes. It is also important to remember that much of this work has been the result of commercial product development, undertaken by private corporations serving rapidly growing customer bases, themselves usually in the public agency or corporate sectors. In other words, most of the recent development of GIS technology has been demand-driven, with the practical problems they wish to address using a GIS product. Small wonder, then, that there has been little impetus to examine issues that typically are raised by academics concerned with social critique and social theory. These are hardly the clientele to whom GIS developers and users address themselves in the applied worlds of facilities management, land management, or geodemographics.Nevertheless, the issues raised by academic social theorists are relevant to the ways in which GIS permeates contemporary life in advanced industrial societies. (Ibid: 51)
Are there additional arenas for the demonstration and contribution of academic relevance? Is it possible to bring these different groups together to reflect on what the future of this technology should be? The NCGIA initiative is a good start with respect to GIS. But where are the other academic disciplines? Where are the GIS producers? Where are the GIS users? Where is the press? The process of technological change in general needs to come under more intensive debate. Echoing many recent calls, we suggest that it is important to continue challenging the notion that "all technology is good" and should be adopted as quickly as possible, and that those who question it are necessarily "Luddites," or lunatics: we reiterate Bronson's exhortation to find a middle ground between seeing technology as doom, or technology as utopia.
How this debate may be effected and given real power is an issue that requires initiative and direct action....
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As in all studies, we were limited by many factors, including a certain shortage of time and resources in which to do all the research that we really wanted to do. We felt that we did not get to spend nearly enough time with GIS models in action, and we did not have the opportunity to communicate with other sovereignty groups, as we would have liked.
Space limitations prevented us from going more in depth into various subjects that enthralled us - actually nearly all the subject matter we covered was extremely stimulating, and we often wished we could offer all this material to our readers, so that they too could share the excitement of the learning process we have gone through.
Most of all, we wished we would have more time and opportunities to learn about Hawaiian culture before engaging in such research.
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On a general level, our attitude towards GIS technology has shifted from our initial optimism and excitement to a more critical perspective. We have learned through our research that GIS, while having positive potentials, can be a very manipulative and powerful tool that must be understood thoroughly before being applied to any situation. We have found that our original attitude toward GIS was loaded with Western assumptions about the promise of progress, the neutrality of technology and the objectivity of the data, among many other things. Realizing this has been an important part of our "personal decolonization process," which has opened us to various new perspectives and understandings. Below, we relate some reflections on how this research has affected us individually and together, and what we have learned from our collaboration.
This project has given us what we both asked for - a vision of a sustainable society and much more. We were from the beginning impressed by the systemic vision of a cultural transformation toward the development of a so-called 100% sustainable nation as it was proposed by Adam in L.A.. Through the development of a comprehensive mapping tool we believed this project was the grounded manifestation we had both been looking for, and in many ways it was. This experience has in many ways been a learning process of how to keep the flame of a demanding vision alive, without ourselves burning out. We have learned the richness of being humbled in front of people, how it makes us see our own stubbornness, and rigidity. But we have also learned to stand up for our rights when enough was enough and be proud of who we are and what we do.
Our eagerness to engage in fieldwork relating to systemic and transformative change of our society, we believe, was an inspired reaction of a CIIS influenced mindset of cultural critique combined with a spiritually and ecologically grounded perspective on the organization of society. The work has therefore been a deeply personally motivated experiment of not being intimidated by a big vision, but rather to take on challenges knowing that we will grow according to the initiative we take ourselves.
What does it take and not take to inhabit such a vision in a world that is still dominated by an exploitative colonial mindset of the West? Many issues emerged and a lot of learning took place minute by minute in this reality. We have learned to be increasingly flexible in order to deal with unpredictable incidents in a reality that was always characterized by lack of both monetary and personal resources. We became flexible to the point where our own integrity and needs were on the verge of being deeply challenged. We became so obsessed with the accomplishment of the constant pressure and demands of the vision itself that we at times lost the perspective of what we had originally set out to do.
The loss of perspective was also fueled by our project leader in L.A., a dedicated workaholic who had already seriously challenged the boundary between work life and personal life. His work ethic challenged both of our lifestyles which have been an attempt to balance our life with spiritual practice, dedicated work, physical performance and nutritious diet. The notion of commitment to this vision was challenged by our personal needs. In the case of our work in L.A., we labored for twelve plus hours per day for weeks at a time, and there was never a guarantee of being done, being rewarded, or for that matter, actually getting started with the GIS building phase. In other words, there was a sense of being over our heads in an environment that was itself over its head. How much more to give to try to ensure the project's success, and how much to keep in reserve to ensure our own personal sustainability? This practice was radically changed when we regained the focus of our thesis and balanced our contribution to the vision with much more self awareness.
The demands that were placed on us required us to learn quickly as we went along. We soon became adept at taking on most challenges without fear, but with an expectation of being humbled and taught by the process itself. In that regard work pressure was an incredible teacher because it taught us to surrender our shortcomings, gratefully, sooner or later.
The technologically optimistic, positivistic, and objectivistic assumptions of the well-intentioned and in many ways cutting-edge GIS design environment of L.A. had lasting effects on both of us. We were gifted in many ways by work in this world which rarely opens itself to researchers, but upon leaving, we struggled for months to shake off lingering impressed patterns and beliefs about GIS that were incompatible with the much more multi-faceted complexities of the technology that we were being exposed to in the recent literature, and in the field. While we may now be somewhat critical of the original design culture, it is for the purpose of aiding it with our luxury of academic reflection; reflection which is so difficult to come by in the fast-paced, competitive, uncertain, always-behind-schedule world of innovation and entrepreneurship.
Overall, the collaboration between the two of us has added immensely to this research, if not making it possible in the first place. Collaboration has been an enriching experience of constant support and unquestioned commitment for both of us, which has been essential in times of stress, fatigue, and challenges. The teamwork we have engaged in has also probably enabled us to take on more challenging endeavors than we could have individually. We have been able to experience greater endurance over the whole course of research because we could help process each other's frustrations when they appeared, and constantly seeking to make the best of each situation, we have each served as an inspiration to the other on many different occasions.
With regard to our interviews, we have noted that being a team creates a more significant "event," and have often been more dynamic because we bring different perspectives, memories, and note-taking capabilities to the situation, and in general more energy and enthusiasm to the exchange.
The discussion of our findings and literature, and the writing of our field notes and the thesis itself have generally been very inspiring and creative intellectual processes because we both brought complementary ideas to discussions. To some extent we feel that our collaboration has been an `anthropology of anthropology,' especially because one of us is a Dane and the other an American, which has given us the benefit (and the challenge) of constantly interpreting many incidents from different cultural perspectives.
We believe that the intense process and work with the material we have undergone together has created a much deeper and more lasting learning process than had we undertaken such work alone, though this process has not always been easy or gone quickly because we engaged in thorough discussions to align our intentions. These discussions happened fairly frequently in the case of this paper, which has gone through several drafts before it was actually finalized. Both of us have often had to swallow our pride, words and promises numerous times for the sake of moving forward in a constructive way - meaning a way we can both accept. In such a process of compromise and give and take, we have learned new ways to be, to study, to speak, etc.
We have been changed, enriched and expanded on many levels through working with each other. Our likeness has even got to a point that people we meet continuously ask if we are brothers!
In our fieldwork in Hawai`i we feel our collaboration has generally been an asset both for ourselves and the Hawaiians. We have been able to sustain ourselves at the village without the Hawaiian residents having to "take care of us." From this position we have been able to build our relations with the community members in a timely and non-invasive way while they had a chance to check us out without getting too involved (at least from our perspective). A possible drawback is that it may be more complex for our Hawaiian neighbors to share and reach out to a team, yet they were so inclusive, warm, considerate and caring that we have not felt it as a significant problem.
Getting to know the Hawaiians who we have been living with has been an inspiration. Shaken to the core by learning the details of their stories of discovery, colonialization, exploitation, and now renaissance, we now deeply respect the strength, humor, warmth and solid determination that seem to be so much at their core. We feel that their example of forgiveness, perseverance, and humility in the context of such a difficult history deserves, and will win, appropriate recognition.
By reaching out to an ambitious and visionary project such as this, I have ultimately reached deeper into the core of my own being. I have stretched, grown and expanded myself through tumultuous situations, stressful moments, leaps of faith and vital support. This experience has ultimately made me feel more grounded and connected through the persistent exercise of committed perseverance combined with a substantial amount of flexibility. I learned that no matter what I do, my actions must be born out of integrity to myself. When change is required I have learned again and again how important it is to always challenge my own assumptions and actions before attempting
I have been continually fascinated by the adaptability of my personality which I have expressed in a multiplicity of roles and situations during this fieldwork experience. This experience has ultimately helped me to experience life in a way that includes more and more diversity and contradictions and thereby expanded my perspective. But maybe most importantly, I have begun to learn about the rich value of humbleness from all the times when my preconceived ideas have been in the way of being present, in the moment.
Through our experience together Christopher has become a friend whom I can trust, and because of his commitment to supporting myself through this project, I have been able to grow, to improve, and to make mistakes, which I am grateful for. The collaborative aspect of this research has further enabled me to integrate the anthropological emphasis on the permeable boundaries between myself as researcher, and the "researched," a process that has increased my understanding of culture as a participatory process, where every detail of life has importance and relevance. This was also facilitated by my good fortune in being with such alive, warm and caring people as the Hawaiians living at Pu`uhunua o Waimanalo.
Working in this collaborative way was for me, an "individualistic American," a real opportunity with many benefits and challenges. In collaboration I was forced to surrender "my way" often, and truly be open to what could emerge out of "Ulrik's way" or often, a combination of our approaches. We often inspired each other when the other needed it, and he helped me to see a lot of "stuff" that I don't see when working alone - stubbornness, old patterns, underdeveloped listening ability.... Ulrik helped me continually grok the value in looking at an old situation with a fresh perspective - what a concept!
I learned through this work that while I want to help create a better world, I can't help anyone much if I am not personally strong, if I am not in personal integrity, and if I don't keep about me a forceful discrimination to hear what is being said beyond the words, and to see what is being done under the surface of things. The work of cultivating the personal qualities that could be useful in this and the next phases of history is a constant challenge and opportunity. Flexibility, intuition, networking, non-attachment, trust, responsibility, and a commitment to service are all qualities that I aspire to, and this project gave me lessons in all of them.
Perhaps most of all, I have been challenged to hold many different cultural realities and even many different identities at the same time; this has been a most exhilarating and yet bewildering process. The difficulties of holding on to a core sense of self manifested frequently for me, as I seemed to get lost in the exciting, shifting cultural realities that beset us. Still, I would do it all over again as I feel that I have come away with a stronger yet more flexible sense of identity. All in all, I would recommend the anthropological, ethnographic fieldwork process wholeheartedly, especially in a collaborative process of some sort. I strongly feel that this project would not have been completed, or undertaken, without collaboration. However, it is important to emphasize the importance of the collaborators being of an appropriate chemistry to negotiate the potentially intense or even extreme demands which may be experienced during the research process.... In this way, Ulrik and I have been fortunate, for while not always enjoying perfectly smooth sailing/navigating, we have for the most part been verygood co-pilots together on this long and unpredictable journey.
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We end by recalling a recent incident that occurred over dinner in the community dining room at Pu`uhonua o Waimanalo village. While eating with the rest of the village, a big screen television was tuned to the local news and weather, and we found ourselves feasting on cloud patterns over the vast Pacific ocean from Channel 9. Suddenly recalling the legends of the Polynesian navigators, we were struck by the extent to which the ways we know and communicate with our place have changed in the last few hundred years. Channel 9 then flew us through the Hawaiian archipelago and then on out over the vastness of the central Pacific with a GIS-like landscape modeling program.
It seems so unreal that we are in the middle of the Pacific - we so recently paid $130, sat in a cramped seat for five hours, and then got out of the plane in this place we were told was Hawai`i. What experience did we really have getting here, and what wisdom did it lead to? How would our experience and wisdom change if we had to navigate here ourselves? What would it be like to ride the swells of the Pacific and use the waves, sky, and all senses to arrive at a destination thousands of miles away? Contemplating this, we paused in our dinner and conversation, in awe at the no doubt total immersion and multi-sensory awareness of the Polynesian wayfinder who would use information from his or her immediate environment such as ocean taste, wave patterns, star locations, and even his own testicles to move over the dynamic landscape of that gigantic body of water....
Our world will probably never be the same after the impacts of the visioning and information technologies of this century. Until we have the benefit of deeper experience, we cannot offer much in the way of grounded, time-tested wisdom beyond the emerging reflections contained in these pages. However, we can and do offer our life's energy toward the accumulation and integration of insights, practices, and understandings which may in some small way, help at some level to navigate in these tumultuous times.
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