Ka'akālai Kū Kanaka: A Call for Strengths-Based Approaches from a Native Hawaiian Perspective

In 1956, Andrew Sharp published "Ancient Voyagers in the Pacific," in which he hypothesized that the migration throughout much of Polynesia, including Hawaii, was accidental. Archaeologists and historians widely accepted Sharp's theory as a simple solution to how Polynesians crossed 2,200 miles of open ocean on the world's largest sea. His theory of accidental migration was much more palatable than intentional migration at a time when the Western world had an understanding of measuring latitude, but no reliable measure for determining longitude (Sobel, 1995). Actually, Native Hawaiians mastered the science of navigating across the world's largest expanse of ocean long before the Western world was able to overcome the longitude problem. This is one example of a Western theory of an indigenous people based on foreign perceptions of reality. It reaffirms that knowledge is power--and that power lies in the use of knowledge to advance one's understanding of the world as opposed to another. In this article, the author explores these ideas to underscore the compelling need for research about Native Hawaiians based on strengths, rather than deficits, and from a Native Hawaiian worldview. The author addresses the social construction of knowledge and the power and lasting impact of deficits theories in that construction of knowledge. The paper begins with several broad arguments about the construction of knowledge and its use, and then examines the specific examples of deficits approaches in indigenous education. The paper ends by calling for a new framework that brings to the floor Native Hawaiian strengths that have been too long misinterpreted, misrecognized, and undervalued.