Potent Mana: Lessons in Power and HealingBrilliantly elucidating and weaving together the forces of indigenous sovereignty, colonialism, and personal health, Potent Mana offers a uniquely holistic and intimate portrait of the long-term effects of colonialism on an indigenous people., the kānaka maoli (Native Hawaiians). An ethnographic exploration based on fifteen months of research, the book moves the conversation on the dangerous effects of colonialism forward by exploring the theories and practices of Native Hawaiians engaged in decolonization. Decades of substance abuse, mental illness, depression, language loss, and the concomitant dispossession from sacred lands have accompanied colonialism. Consequently, healing, both mental and physical, are essential to decolonization and indigenous sovereignty in twenty-first century Hawai'i. Native Hawaiian-run treatment centers and clinics more than political rallies are centers for healing and decolonization on O'ahu today. The effects of colonialism and the measures taken to counter and move beyond it, as Wende Marshall convincingly argues, do not take place solely on a supralocal level but shatteringly involve the physical and emotional well-being of real individuals. Becoming decolonized is about overcoming the shame of colonialism, and requires a process of remembering the traditions of ancestors and reinterpreting and rewriting histories that have only been told from a colonial point of view. Decolonization is an indigenous perspective, and an understanding that health was impossible without political power and cultural integrity. |
Contents
1 | |
The People of Old | 21 |
A Space of Resistance | 45 |
What the Data Hide | 69 |
4 THE STENCH OF MAUNA ALACOLONIALISM AND MENTAL HEALTH | 89 |
Remembering Hawaiian | 111 |
6 DREAMING CHANGE | 133 |
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Common terms and phrases
aikapu āina Ali'i aloha American ancestors Anthropologist argued Auntie Rita beach biomedical bodies chant chief Christian Chung clients clinical colonialism concept counselors decolonization discourse disease dispossession economic epidemic epistemology ethnic European foreigners Hale Ola haole Haunani-Kay Trask Hawai Hawai'i Press Hawaiian culture Hawaiian health Hawaiian language healing Ho‘o Mōhala ho'oponopono Hoʻo homeless Honolulu Honolulu Advertiser humans Interview kahuna kalo Kamakau Kame‘eleihiwa 1992 Kamehameha Kanaka Maoli kapu Kēhaulani kūpuna Laenui land late twentieth century living Mākua mālama mana Mauna Ala means meant Meipala mental health missionaries Native Hawaiians neocolonial neoliberalism notion O‘ahu oppression Pacific Islanders percent po'e po‘e kahiko political pono population Porteus practices Pukui racial relationship resistance scholars shame social souls sovereignty movement specifically Hawaiian spiritual staff story struggle taro Territory of Hawai'i tion traditional transformed Trask treatment uhane University of Hawai'i Wai‘anae WCCMHC Western women wrote York