Aloha Aina: Native Hawai’ians’ environmental perspective in O.A Bushnell’s Ka’a’awa

Abstract

This paper foregrounds the Native Hawai’ians’ environmental perspective of Aloha Aina in Oswald Andrew’s Ka’a’awa. By asserting that the land and all the entities are part of their family (ohana), this epistemology stresses the equality of human and non-human which run contrary to the Western anthropocentric view. This present study is conducted within indigenous ecocriticism perspective, in which alternative epistemology of human and non-human interaction should be considered in the light of global environmental crisis. In Ka’a’awa, Bushnell explores how reconciliation of indigenous perspective and White settler proves difficult to achieve under Orientalist discourse that derogatively perceive the native epistemologies as superstitious and irrational. Moreover, the enforcement of Western anthropocentric view towards the local natives through colonialism causes the islanders to forget their ancestral epistemology. This paper concludes that Bushnell’s elaboration of a novel culture which embraces both side of the spectrum, indigenous and white settler culture is an avenue to achieve sustainable ecological condition.