Haʻu ka Waha i ka Nahele: Dissonance and Song in Kanaka Sites of Counter-Memory

Abstract

Waikīkī and Maunakea are two sites of global interest and prominence, occupying a certain space in the collective consciousness of Hawaiʻi. They are not, however, often considered as sites of conscience, even though they are the sources of Kanaka counter-memory that stand in opposition to the memories codified by the settler state into narratives of Kanaka dispossession and Americanization. This article interrogates this condition of illegibility, and the role of mele, hula, and a moment of dissonance in revealing the sites and stories often overwritten by dominant, quasi-colonial narratives of tourism, capitalism, Western enlightenment, and progress. I also argue that our true sites of conscience are those that invite a change of consciousness on the part of the onlooker/participant, laying the foundation for collaborative envisioning of pono futures for Hawaiʻi, in the context of aloha ʻāina.