Abstract
Abstract Hawaii is central to the North Pacific. Its crucial strategic location has made it an unusual history during its modernization. The archipelago composes of eight main islands. There were many Polynesian kingdoms on the islands since prehistory. In January 1778, Captain James Cook accidentally came across these islands. This event started the contact between the West and Hawaii. In 1810, King Kamehameha I unified the archipelago and established the Kingdom of Hawaii. In 1820, United States missionaries arrived and converted Hawaiians to Christianity. Westerners, in 1840 assisted the Hawaiian Kingdom to promulgate its first constitution making the Hawaiian Kingdom a constitutional monarchy abandoning its traditional absolute power. Through diplomatic efforts in 1843, the British and French governments entered into a formal agreement to recognize the Hawaiian Islands with what is called the Anglo-Franco proclamation, which made the “constitutional kingdom the first national state of the non-Western world.” In 1893, the haole (White) in Hawaii overthrew the kingdom with United States military support. In 1898, the United States occupied Hawaii under the name of attacking the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. Because the United States never followed the legal procedures to annex Hawaii as a new territory, the anti-American ruling movement is lasting till now. In this dissertation, I argue that there are two models of the Hawaiian political movement, each with different strategies and political objectives. The first is the 'de-colonization' movement. Its goal is to fight for the autonomy or independence for the native population. It emphasizes the indigenous rights for political autonomy, asking the United States government to recognize the native Hawaiians as an indigenous nation of the United States and establish the equivalence of the Indian reservation government for the native Hawaiian autonomy. Some native Hawaiians insist to secede from the United States pursuing the totally independence. The second is 'de-occupation' - it argues that the United States-Hawaii partnership is a military occupation. Its goal is to terminate the military occupation status and restore the Hawaiian Kingdom government. It argues that the Hawaiian Kingdom sovereignty still exists and only the kingdom government was suspended under United States occupation. I argue the de-colonization movement was derived from and appears more appropriate for 'the ethnic nationalism', whose subjects are the native Hawaiian. Their identity is based on 'blood' or 'genetic inheritance'. On the other hand I argue the de-occupation movement was derived from and thereby formed 'the civic nationalism', whose subjects are the Hawaiian Kingdom subjects. Their identity is based on their legal status. Pono is the cultural core of the Hawaiians. Their value system compose by pono is the most important cultural structure of its people. I argue that it is the main resource of the actors who are fighting against the power during the political movement in contemporary times. It is the juxtaposition of the agency and structure. I argue that the Hawaiian political movement in the modern times is a political practice under the name of pono, which includes the ethic idea of good, justice, correct, morality, etc. Despite the difference of political standing and identities of organizations, law, and culture are treated as the best strategy to counter the Western powers that they were best acquainted with. This thesis is an anthropological research on the Hawaiian political movement and identities in contemporary. I used historical materials and my own field studies to explore how the Hawaiians showed their highly political agency with compromising, learning and mimicking the West and gradually received their political and economic autonomy. The Hawaiians have made successful countering devices to the tragic viewpoint of Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein's 'world system' theory – the peoples in Asia, Africa, and the Pacific can only be absorbed into the world system constructed by the Western Imperialists. Facing the power of imperialism, the Hawaiians offer an extremely valuable example providing evidence of the unlimited possibilities of native human agencies. Key words: Hawaii, Hawaiian, Polynesia, native, indigenous, ethnic nationalism, civic nationalism, political movement, identity, de-colonization, de-occupation, ethnicity, localism, power, law, civilization, legality, legitimacy