Decolonizing Sustainability for Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander Well-Being

In Spring 2023, Dr. Angela Fa‘anunu received a grant from the University of Hawaiʻi (UH) Center for Indigenous Innovation and Health Equity (CIIHE)* to support a research project titled: “Decolonizing Sustainability for Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Well-Being.” The grant award consisted of funding ($322,482) for two years to explore three initiatives:

1. Reframe and redefine sustainability from a Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander perspective through the 2023 Mālama Honua: Indigenous Perspectives on Sustainability Conference in Hilo, July 19-21;
2. Understand how cultural practice (voyaging) impacts well-being among crew members of the Polynesian Voyaging Society;
3. Explore the indigenous concepts of sustainability, such as “Mo‘ui Fakapotopoto” (living a wise life) and “Mo‘ui Fakataau” (living a pono life) in the Kingdom of Tonga - in the absence of colonialism.

This website serves as a platform to share processes and findings from this project with the public.

This research project seeks to understand and highlight indigenous concepts of sustainability and it is influenced and shaped by Dr. Fa‘anunu’s personal experiences and identity as a Tongan woman. Dr. Fa‘anunu hails from the Kingdom of Tonga and currently serves as an assistant professor of Sustainable Tourism at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo’s College of Business & Economics. During her graduate school years at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, she was a member of the Polynesian Voyaging Society where she was a haumana (student) of traditional navigation from Master Navigators, Nainoa Thompson and Bruce Blakenfeld. In 2009, she voyaged on Hōkūle‘a from Hawaiʻi to Palmyra Atoll in the Kiribati Islands – the first deep-sea training voyage for the Mālama Honua World-Wide Voyage.