He 'Aʻaliʻi Ku Makani (Kokololio) Mai Au: Reconnecting to Community and Reenvisioning a New Purpose for Environmental Archaeology [electronic resource]

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This dissertation focuses on decolonizing the discipline of archaeology through archaeology as activism. It separates archaeology as activism into two specific strategies: vocational activism, or increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in archaeological training, and archaeology as activism, or making data useful to modern social activist movements. Borrowing from healthcare, I argue that integrating cultural humility-which emphasizes self-work-into training programs has the potential to help archaeologists challenge their norms, leading to less-biased interpretations of the past. Furthermore, I showcase the unique role and responsibility archaeologists from within a community play in decolonizing archaeology. As a Native Hawaiian archaeologist, I promote vocational activism in this dissertation by integrating Hawaiian studies into my research, calling for the reconceptualization of land in archaeological studies, particularly conceptualizing land as people, land as source, and land as ongoing connection and care, and rethinking how we interact with her (land). I then transition into my case study on water rights activism in Na Wai ʻEha, Maui. While the community has made significant headway in advancing Native Hawaiian water rights, I highlight how there is still a lack of hydrological data, something that is needed to change water allocation. In my methods, I set a foundation for further analysis by reconstructing the landscape and providing an estimate of taro quantity and water usage prior to the plantation period. I show potential ways that sugarcane plantations negatively impacted the environment by using maps, satellite imagery, and aerial photography to trace hydrological infrastructure changes and changes in the environment in light of the microclimate data from 1920 to 2007. From this analysis, it appears that sugarcane plantations drastically altered the environment by utilizing significantly more water than taro and decreasing the density of woodlands. My research, thus, provides a roadmap for increasing equity within the discipline and integrating Native Hawaiian ways of knowing into archaeology. Furthermore, it highlights the potential and limitations of doing research on Hawaiʻi while forced to be off-island as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.